HCM City Party Secretary Nguyen Thien Nhan 

During the fifth session of the HCM City People's Council's meeting on July 4, Nhan said they should review all the achievements as well as shortcomings of the population policies in order to make plans for the next five to ten years.

According to Nhan, before 1960, each woman in the north had about six children. From 1975 to 1980, the average number of children per woman in Vietnam was reduced to three and to two since 2005.

"For 10 years, women have had two children. This means after the parents retire, their two children can replace them to contribute to the country. It's a golden population structure," he said.

There were times when the government called to reduce the birth rate to 1.8 children. But if a woman has less than two children then in 30 years, that country would supposedly face a severe workforce shortage.

Nhan went on to say that South Korea, Singapore and Japan all reduced the birth rate to 1.3 and now they were having to deal with a workforce shortage. It is predicted that the population of Japan will go down from 120 million in 2000 to 40 million in 50 years. 

"It's a hardship to have too many children but it's not good to have so few. Having two children is necessary for a sustainable workforce," he said.

Nhan also addressed the gender imbalance and said they would set the goals to maintain a reasonable sub-replacement fertility and reduce the gender imbalance. However, while the gender imbalance problem in HCM City is not urgent as 106 boys are born for 100 girls, the low birth rate is worrisome.

"HCM City has the lowest birth rate in Vietnam as each woman only has 1.46 children for the past 9 years," he said. "If this continues we'll lack workforce. The aim is to bring the birth rate to 2 children per woman."

Birth control options and even sterilisation can be applied after the family already has two children. 

"Having children for yourself, for the city and for the country. Having children is a freedom of an individual but when there are too few kids being born, the country will be harmed," he said. 

Nhan said HCM City must set a birth rate goal, specifically the sub-replacement fertility goals.

dtinews