Health staff members introduce contraceptive methods to residents of Tu Son township in Bac Ninh province (Photo: VNA)Hanoi (VNA) –
Troubled by in southern provinces, the
has proposed relaxing the country’s two-child policy in order to allow
Vietnamese parents to decide the number of children they want.
This was one of three
proposals presented by the ministry at the 12th Party
Central Committee’s sixth meeting underway in Hanoi.
The three suggestions,
contained in a draft population law, include a differential policy of birth
rate flexibly according to regions so that in areas with high fertility rate of
three children per woman, families would be encouraged to have fewer than two
children whereas in areas where the fertility rate is low, parents would be
encouraged to have two children.
The second option would
keep in place the two-child policy, which encouraged parents to have only one
or two children. The third option would allow parents to decide.
Nguyen Van Tan, deputy
chief of the ministry’s General Office for Population and Family Planning, said
the country has managed to maintain the ideal replacement level fertility of
2.1 children per woman over the past decade. Replacement levels refer to a
balance between the number of births and deaths.
Figures from Ho Chi Minh
City’s Department of Population and Family Planning show that Vietnam’s largest
city recorded fertility rates of 1.45 children per woman of childbearing age. A
low birth rate was also observed in the Mekong Delta region – between 1.5-1.6
children per woman.
If the is
maintained, and the birth rate is lower than the replacement rate, the country
would face a series of problems, including social benefits for the elderly and
labour shortages in the next ten years, he said.
If the birth rate drops
below a certain level, it would be difficult to increase it, a problem faced by
other Asian nations. Tan cited the Republic of Korea as an example of a country
that maintained a limited birth rate policy until it decided to loosen the
policy when the rate dropped to less than 1.6 children per woman in 1996.
However, this rate
continued to decline further, reaching 1.08 children per woman in 2005. The
government made efforts to encourage childbirth, adopting incentive policies
that resulted in an increase up to an average of 1.27 children per woman in
2012.
Some of the participants at
the discussion raised concerns of a population boom if the third option is
implemented, expressing support for the differentiated regional option.
However, Tan said that
based on the experience of other countries, increasing the birth rate in areas
with low fertility would be difficult.
The draft population law
will be discussed further before the Party Central Committee’s plenary session
ends on October 11.-VNA
Source: VietnamPlus
