The Department of Population under the Ministry of Health (MOH) estimated that the total birth rate in Vietnam in 2023 was 1.95 children per woman, lower than the 2.01 children per woman in 2022 and far below the 2.09 children in 2019. 

As such, Vietnam failed to implement its plan of having the fertility rate of 2.1 children per woman (replacement level fertility).

The southeastern region and Mekong Delta were the localities with the lowest fertility rates. Some provinces in the region witnessed sharp falls in fertility rate, including Bac Lieu, Hau Giang, Ben Tre, Binh Duong and HCM City.

According to Mai Trung Son from the Department of Population, the UN has warned that if the fertility rate continue to decline, Vietnam’s population will decrease to 3.6 million by 2500, which is equal to the population of Nghe An province at this moment, and to tens of thousands of people by 2700.

In fact, as soon as agencies found the fertility rate downtrend in some localities, Vietnam launched the fertility rate adjustment program, or Program 588. 

However, it is difficult to adjust the fertility rate of every locality, especially in some provinces. Many localities don’t take action to intervene in fertility rates and encourage women to have more children. Many couples tend to get married and give birth later than previous generations and tend to have only one child. 

Meanwhile, there are still no specific policies to encourage couples to have two children, and no intervention model to raise the fertility rate, no intervention for adolescents and and young people, no action for infertility prevention in the community for young people, and no pre-marriage training courses. All of these policies are still under compilation.

Consequences

According to Deputy Minister of Health Nguyen Thi Lien Huong, there are 21 cities/provinces that have low and very low fertility rates.

Every woman in the southeastern region only has 1.56 children, while every woman in Mekong Delta 1.8 children. The provinces with low fertility rates have a population of 38 million, accounting for nearly 40 percent of the country’s total population. 

Huong warned that this will have ‘a big impact on the sustainable development’.

“Experts believe that if the fertility rate is below 1.3 children, there will be almost no possibility of recovering to replacement level fertility,” Son warned.

Meanwhile, the fertility rate in HCM City dropped to 1.24 children, the same as developed European countries.

International practice shows that many countries have succeeded in reducing fertility rates, but no country has succeeded in bringing very low fertility rates back to the replacement fertility levels, despite encouragement programs with huge investment resources.

According to Ha Anh Duc, chief secretariat of MOH, many countries, when facing fertility rate decreases, have applied measures to stop the downward trend. In South Korea, for example, after setting a record for the lowest fertility rate in the world, the government increased expenditures for fertility encouragement programs and offered higher allowances to encourage couples to have more children.

In Vietnam, amid economic condition improvement, rapid urbanization and deep international integration, the fertility rate decrease is becoming a growing tendency. 

Experts have repeatedly warned about consequences to be caused by the fertility rate decrease, including a rapidly aging population, labor shortage and impact on social security.

Duc stressed that low fertility rate will lead to higher long-term healthcare costs and other social costs. The number of workers will be lower, which will lead to a decrease in economic competitiveness. There will be fewer consumers, leading to lower economic growth and worse living standards.

Aging Population

According to Giang Thanh Long from the National Economics University, an aging population is inevitable for a country that has both increased life expectancy and sharply reduced fertility rate like Vietnam.

For a long time, Vietnam controlled the population increase and the birth rate. Every couple just has one or two children. Families with few children may have certain advantages, but the pressure on children will be harder caring for old parents in the future.

Linh Trang