Vietnam abolishes two-child policy to address declining birth rates

05 Jun 2025 11:59

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Vietnam abolishes two-child policy to address declining birth rates

Photo: AP

Vietnam has officially ended its long-standing two-child limit in an effort to combat declining birth rates and address the growing challenges of an aging population.

The National Assembly passed amendments scrapping rules that limit families to having one or two children, News.Az reports, citing AP.

The rules were usually stricter for Communist Party members, who could miss out on promotions or bonuses if they had a third child.

Vietnamese families are having fewer children than ever before. The birth rate in 2021 was 2.11 children per woman, just over the replacement rate required for a population to avoid shrinking over the long term. Since then, the birth rate has steadily declined: to 2.01 in 2022, 1.96 in 2023 and 1.91 in 2024.

Vietnam isn’t the only Asian country with low fertility. But, unlike Japan, South Korea or Singapore, it is still a developing economy.

Nguyen Thu Linh, 37, a marketing manager in Vietnam’s capital Hanoi, said she and her husband decided to have only one child because they wanted to give their 6-year-old son the best education and upbringing that they could afford.

“Sometimes, I think about having another child so my son can have a sibling, but there’s so much financial and time pressure if you have another child,” she said.

Vietnam introduced rules blocking families from having more than two children in 1988 to reduce pressure on limited resources after years of war, first with France and then the United States, as the country transitioned into a more market-oriented economy. The population rose from about 62 million then to just over 100 million in 2023, the most recent year for which data is available.

Vietnam’s “golden population” period — when working age people outnumber those who depend on them — began in 2007 and is expected to last until 2039. The number of people who can work is likely to peak in 2042 and, by 2054, the population may start shrinking. All of this could make it harder to grow the economy, since there will be fewer workers while the cost of supporting the needs of the elderly increases.

News.Az