Proposal to relax the 'two-child policy': No more unrestricted childbearing.

In the draft Population Law, the Ministry of Health presents two options for adjusting the birth rate, with option 1 allowing couples to responsibly decide on the number of children they have. The Director of the Legal Department (Ministry of Health) stated that many people mistakenly believe that couples will be free to have children as they please.

According to Mr. Nguyen Huy Quang, Director of the Legal Department (Ministry of Health), with the content of Option 1 as described above, many people mistakenly believe that population policy is being relaxed and couples can have children freely. "But that understanding is incorrect," Mr. Quang affirmed.

Mr. Nguyen Huy Quang, Director of the Legal Department (Ministry of Health).

Mr. Quang stated that in the upcoming draft to the National Assembly, out of two options (Option 1: Couples and individuals have the right to responsibly decide on the timing, spacing, and number of children; Option 2: Continue the current regulations so that couples and individuals have the right and obligation to voluntarily, equally, and responsibly decide on the timing and spacing of children. Having one or two children, except in special cases as stipulated by the Government), the Ministry of Health supports the option of relaxing the birth policy, but this does not mean that couples can have children without restraint.

"When presenting the two options, the Ministry of Health considered the advantages and disadvantages, showing that option one had more advantages, but it was not yet confirmed," Mr. Quang said.

Accordingly, Option 1 has four advantages: it ensures human rights, including the right to reproduction, while limiting the risk of a population explosion and lacking a legal basis for penalizing violations related to having many children; it is consistent with international conventions that Vietnam has signed; it reflects the true nature of population work, considering it a large-scale nationwide movement with policies providing material and spiritual incentives and ensuring human resources for development; and it is suitable for the current situation where the birth rate is declining.

“Option 1 is very flexible and adaptable. Although couples can decide the number of children, the state encourages couples and individuals to have only two children. Furthermore, each locality has its own regulations and policies to maintain the replacement fertility rate, not to arbitrarily have 3-4 children, but to reduce birth rates in provinces with high birth rates and encourage birth rates in areas with low birth rates to prolong the period of demographic dividend,” Mr. Quang analyzed.

Mr. Quang added that the replacement fertility rate during the 1965-1969 period, where the average number of children per woman of childbearing age was 6.8, had decreased to only 2.1 by 2005 and has remained stable until now.

As a result, population growth has slowed but is expected to reach 100 million by 2025 and continue to increase slowly to around 106-107 million by the middle of the century. However, Vietnam remains the third most populous country in Southeast Asia, the eighth in Asia, and the fourteenth in the world. Population density is 274 people/km2, more than five times higher than the world average (53 people/km2).

Since 2006, Vietnam has entered a period of "golden" demographic structure, projected to last approximately 40 years, but it has also entered a period of "population aging" since 2012, when the proportion of people aged 60 and over reached 10% of the total population, and is expected to become an "aged population" country around 2032, when this proportion reaches 20%.

Therefore, while the previous Population and Family Planning policy focused solely on family planning with the goal of reducing birth rates, the new population policy encompasses more content, a much broader scope, and greater flexibility to improve population quality, maintain the demographic dividend for as long as possible, and address the risks of premature population aging and gender imbalance, all in order to leverage the demographic dividend for socio-economic development.

According to Dantri