HCM City has been listed among the 21 cities and provinces with the lowest fertility rates in Vietnam.

This is seen as a radical change compared to the current Population Ordinance, which called for each couple or individual to have “one to two children.”

Women in 21 provinces and cities in Vietnam who have 2 children before the age of 35 will be rewarded with cash or in kind support, according to a circular issued recently by the Ministry of Health.

Alarmingly falling birth rate in HCM City worried authorities as falling birth rates in the city could spell disaster for economic growth and welfare systems.

Vietnam currently has 33 provinces with high birth rates, including many economically developed localities.

Vietnam has seen the disparity in the birth rate among localities with the falling rate reported in cities and urban areas.

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has approved a birth rate adjustment programme towards 2030 which encourages people to get married before the age of 30 and women to give birth to the second child before they get 35 years old.

Vietnam’s population and family planning work in 2019 faced difficulties, especially in communications due to decreased funding, heard a conference in Hanoi on January 9.

An estimated 4,259 babies will be born in Vietnam on New Year’s Day, UNICEF said today. Vietnamese babies will account for over one per cent of the estimated 392,078 babies to be born on New Year’s Day.

Vietnam will have 4.3 million more men in the next 30 years due to an increasing gender imbalance.

The number of babies being born in Ho Chi Minh City continues to fall to a low birth rate of 1.33 children per family.

Given that the average number of 1.3 children of HCM City’s women  today is an "alarming sign," the head of the General Department of Population has recommended Saigon women to have two children.

 US teen births have dropped to a record low, but the country still has one of the highest rates among developed nations, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

On the sidelines of a meeting of the National Assembly’s Committee on Social Affairs on January 29, many experts said they were shocked with the plan on rewarding the families with two daughters of the General Department of Population.

VietNamNet Bridge - In order to reduce the sex ratio imbalance at birth, the General Department of Population will propose the Government to provide social welfare for the families that have two baby girls.