VietNamNet Bridge –As the birth rate falls, HCM City authorities are encouraging married couples to have more than one child but no more than two, and to not delay marriage beyond the child-bearing age.

HCM City authorities are encouraging married couples to have more than one child but no more than two, and to not delay marriage beyond the child-bearing age.—Photo dansokiengiang

To Thi Kim Hoa, head of the city's Population and Family Planning Division, said the city was in the early stages of making plans to inform the public about this issue.

According to the city's Population and Family Planning Division, the birth rate in the southeastern and southwestern regions has fallen to 1.5 – 1.8 children per mother each year.

HCM City has the lowest birth rate in the country, 1.33 children per mother last year, compared to 1.45 in 2009, according to Duong Quoc Trong, head of the General Office for Population and Family Planning.

Mandeep K. O'Brien, acting chief representative of the UN's Population Fund in Viet Nam, told the local media that the birth rate in Viet Nam had fallen from 2.1 in 2005 to 1.99 in 2011.

She said that Viet Nam's national programme on population and family planning in the last few decades had been very successful.

However, now the country needs to look to the future and take action against the falling birth rate, as the population becomes progressively older, she added.

She pointed to countries like South Korea, Singapore and Thailand, for example, that now face challenges meeting social assistance needs for the elderly as the number of people of working age in their countries falls.

In recent years, many women of child-bearing age have decided to have only one child.

Nguyen Thi Bich Ngan, 32, of HCM City's Tan Phu District, for example, said she no longer wanted to have more than one child because she had no relative who could take care of her three-year-old son.

Ngan takes care of her son while her husband works. Her parents and in-laws live in other provinces and are unavailable to assist her.

When her son becomes sick, she has to take time off at her job to take care of him, Ngan said.

Current economic difficulties in the country have also led her to rethink her position, she said, adding that many women fear they could lose their jobs or not get promoted if they have more than one child.

Hoa said the birth rate in HCM City had fallen year by year.

The main reason was the increasing cost of living, including higher expenses to raise a child, according to Hoa.

As people become more educated, they also realise that having only one or two children will benefit the family's financial development, she added.

Source: VNS