Information from the Ministry of Health shows that the replacement fertility rate in Vietnam has decreased significantly over the past 12 years and is forecast to continue to decrease in the coming years.
Specifically, the total fertility rate in 2022 will reach 2.01 children/woman, and is expected to decrease to 1.96 children/woman in 2023. The trend of not wanting or having very few children has appeared in some urban areas with developed economic conditions.
Two alarming areas are the Southeast and the Mekong Delta. The birth rate continues to drop, around 1.5 children per woman. Meanwhile, in some places with difficult economic and social conditions, the birth rate remains high, even very high, over 2.5 children per woman.
To address this issue, the Ministry of Health proposes to empower couples to decide on the timing, spacing, and number of children. This is to ensure that it is appropriate for age, health status, education, work, income, and child-rearing conditions. At the same time, couples and individuals need to ensure their responsibility to care for, raise, and educate their children well; and build a prosperous, equal, progressive, happy, and civilized family.
This is a change from the current Population Ordinance, which stipulates that each couple is only allowed to “have one or two children, except in special cases prescribed by the Government”. The Ministry of Health emphasized that this new policy will help overcome the situation of extremely low birth rates and at the same time avoid the risk of serious population aging.
As soon as the above proposal was made, many people expressed their agreement and support for the Ministry of Health's proposal to "relax" the regulations on childbirth.
Ms. Nguyen Thu Huong (Hanoi) confided: “My husband and I are both only children. When I was young, I had no siblings to play with. When I grew up, my parents, paternal and maternal grandparents (who only gave birth to my father and mother) got sick, and I was the only one to take care of them. I didn’t want my children to fall into the same situation as me. Neither did my husband.”
Therefore, when there was a proposal to remove the regulation that each couple can only have 1 or 2 children, Ms. Huong supported the Ministry of Health's opinion.
“Understanding the situation of an only child, I always want to have many children to make the family happy and the children support each other when the family has work, instead of having to shoulder the burden alone,” Ms. Huong expressed.
Currently having two children, Ms. Vu Thi Ha (Bac Ninh) also agrees with the policy of "untying" the number of children each couple can have.
“My husband is a coast guard, always on the water. If I have the chance, I will have another child so that the family will be more crowded,” said Ms. Ha.
Mr. Nam - Ms. Ha's husband also agrees with his wife's point of view: "If we were allowed to have another child, we would definitely take the opportunity. I just feel sorry for my wife's hardship."
As a Party member working locally, Mr. Ha Van Cuong (Vinh Phuc) shared that "untying" the regulation that each couple can only have 1 or 2 children is inevitable.
According to Mr. Cuong, the period when we issued the Population Ordinance in 2003 and the previous regulations was the time when the third child birth rate exploded, when economic life was still difficult, the concept of "having a boy and a girl", the ideology of "preferring boys over girls" was still ingrained in the minds of Vietnamese people from urban to rural areas. After so many years of communication, people's awareness has changed, the birth rate is below the "replacement level", so "untying" the old regulations is necessary.
"If I have enough financial ability and conditions to raise children, I will also have more children when the regulation not allowing civil servants and party members to have a third child is abolished," said Mr. Cuong.
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