Encourage childbearing to ensure replacement fertility

Regarding this issue, Minister of Health Dao Hong Lan said that the Ministry has completed the content of the proposal to draft the Population Law and sent it to the Government. If approved by the Government, the draft law is expected to be submitted to the 15th National Assembly for comments at the 9th session in 2025 and approved at the 10th session.

The draft Population Law focuses on the main contents: maintaining the replacement fertility rate nationwide; overcoming the fertility gap between regions and subjects to ensure a reasonable population size and adapt to the population aging process.

Prenatal and newborn screening is a solution to early detection of fetal and newborn abnormalities, thereby contributing to improving population quality.

It is expected to allow couples and individuals to decide when to have children, the number of children and the spacing between births; to bring the sex ratio at birth back to a natural balance in order to minimize the economic and social consequences of gender imbalance at birth.

Regarding the birth rate, the Ministry of Health proposed to allow female workers to extend their maternity leave from 6 months to 7 months when giving birth to a second child. The Politburo also requested that Party members not be disciplined for having a third child.

Over the past two decades, urban fertility has fallen below replacement level and is among the lowest in Southeast Asia, currently reaching only 1.91 children per woman.

The fertility rate in rural areas has always been higher than the replacement rate, at 2.2-2.3 children per woman. However, in 2023, the fertility rate in rural areas will drop to 2.07 children, below the replacement rate, the lowest level ever.

A survey on low birth rates in the South in 2019 showed that more than 90% of parents considered the cost of raising and educating children expensive or very expensive. Meanwhile, in 2024, the average income of workers will only reach 7.7 million VND/month. In this context, having two children is a big challenge for many people.

Regarding this issue, Prof. Dr. Nguyen Dinh Cu - former Director of the Institute of Population and Social Issues (National Economics University) said that to encourage couples to have 2 or more children, it is necessary to reduce the cost of raising and educating children for families with young children.

According to Professor Nguyen Dinh Cu, there are many forms of sharing these costs: childbirth allowance; health insurance for children; free tuition from preschool to high school; exemption and reduction of personal income tax; exemption/reduction of contributions in the residential community; housing support policies; development of family and child service systems; financial support for couples undergoing infertility treatment.

Sharing the same view, Associate Professor Dr. Nguyen Duc Vinh - Director of the Institute of Sociology under the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences said that to ensure the birth rate, it is necessary to increase propaganda, encourage and motivate people to get married because currently many young people get married late, or even do not want to get married.

On the other hand, the State needs to pay more attention to medical examination services, ensuring reproductive health for all ages, including unmarried and married people, and those who have children, who need to have regular check-ups and timely treatment to detect diseases.

In fact, the cost of medical examination and treatment, especially infertility treatment, is very high, especially for families using IVF techniques. The cost is too expensive while health insurance does not cover it. This issue is very important and needs to be addressed immediately. Therefore, the State should include it in the list of health insurance payments, with a rate appropriate to the health insurance fund.

In addition, the Government should create friendly conditions and have support policies for people to give birth. In particular, the Government can support people with maternity leave, can increase maternity leave to 9 - 12 months, in some areas the birth rate will increase. In addition, the State can support conditions for giving birth, raising children, health care, ... within the capacity of the Vietnamese social security system.

Source: https://kinhtedothi.vn/khuyen-khich-sinh-con-de-bao-dam-muc-sinh-thay-the.html