Cash incentives fail to boost birth rates as Vietnamese couples limit family size

Having two children before the age of 35, Nguyen Thien Han from Chau Thanh District of Tien Giang Province in the Mekong Delta was granted a certificate of merit and a VND1 million (US$40) support from the local government where she lives.

Han gave birth to her first daughter at the age of 24 in 2016. Last year, she delivered a boy and was contacted by local health authorities to complete the paperwork and receive the award from the commune's People's Committee.

"I was happy and very surprised to receive the reward," she said.

She said she's always wanted to have more children and has prepared herself and her husband to welcome a second child.

Many people around her are having just one child for various reasons, such as economic burdens, fears of not being able to provide adequately for their children, and difficulties in balancing work, she said.

Han is one of more than 5,700 women in Tien Giang who gave birth to two children before the age of 35 and were rewarded according to a resolution of the Provincial People's Council, which came into effect in 2022.

Nguyen Thien Han (L) and five other women of Chau Thanh District of Tien Giang Province receive cash and a certificate of merit for having two children before turning 35 in 2023. Photo courtesy of Han

The province rewarded over 2,160 cases in 2022 and more than 3,500 in 2023. In the first half of this year, they received over 1,460 applications from women having two kids before turning 35.

According to this resolution, the province will also award VND30 million to communes and wards that achieve and exceed the rate of 60% of couples of childbearing age having two children for three consecutive years.

If they achieve this for five consecutive years, the corresponding reward is VND50 million. The award is based on a circular guiding localities to issue policies to reward and support organizations and individuals for good population work, issued by the Ministry of Health in 2021.

However, Nguyen Thanh Sang, head of the Population and Family Planning Sub-Department of Tien Giang, said the birth rate in the area is still low, and even decreasing.

The average number of children per woman of childbearing age in the province is currently 1.66, down from 1.68 last year and 1.77 in 2022. The province remains among the 21 provinces and cities with low birth rates in the country.

Its neighbor Hau Giang Province also offers certificates of merit and financial support of VND1.5 million in hospital fees for women who have two children before the age of 35, starting from 2022.

Those women are also aided with prenatal and newborn screening costs according to medical service prices at public facilities. The province also rewards communes and wards that achieve and exceed the 60% rate of couples of childbearing age having two children.

Some other southern Vietnamese provinces also have policies to reward women who have two children before the age of 35, such as Long An (VND450,000) and Bac Lieu (VND1 million). Ben Tre Province also rewards couples with two or more daughters who commit not to seeking a son to encourage control of gender imbalance at birth.

Despite those efforts, the birth rate in Long An still decreased from 1.77 in 2022 to 1.68 last year and is currently 1.64.

Hau Giang saw a slight increase from 1.51 to 1.52. Bac Lieu's rate rose from 1.46 to 1.53 but was still far below the replacement birth rate of 2-2.1 children per woman, which is needed to sustain a population. Ben Tre maintained a birth rate of 1.62 over the past two years, lower than previous years.

A nurse takes care of newborn babies at Tu Du Hospital in HCMC. Photo by VnExpress/Thanh Tung

Le Thanh Dung, Director of the Population Department under the Ministry of Health, said that the low birth rate is one of several challenges for the population sector.

In Ho Chi Minh City and its industrial neighbors Binh Duong and Dong Nai, the average birth rate has dropped sharply to 1.56 children per woman, from 2.9 in 1999.

The low birth rate occurs not only in some urban areas with developed economies but also in many difficult provinces. This has led to the national birth rate in 2023 dropping to 1.96 - the lowest in history which is expected to continue to decline, Dung said.

A prolonged low birth rate will have profound impacts on population structure, he said, listing a deficient working-age group and an increasing proportion of elderly people. This significantly affects socio-economic development, national defense, security, and the process of sustainable development of the country, he said.

He believes that cash incentives for childbearing are only a small part of the support to increase birth rate.

"No matter how much it is, it would never be enough, and what needs to be primarily done is to change people's awareness," he said.

The United Nations late last year predicted Vietnam's population to shrink to only 3.6 million in the year 2500 if the current low birth rate is not improved.

Vietnam's total fertility rate in 2023 was 1.96 children per woman, a drop compared to the previous year's 2.01 and a replacement ratio of 2.1.

If Vietnam fails to maintain the replacement ratio of 2.1, the population will drop to several tens of thousands of people by 2700 from the existing figure of over 100 million, said Mai Trung Son, deputy head of the Department of Population Size and Family Planning under the General Office for Population and Family Planning of Vietnam.

According to the General Statistics Office's scenario given current rate, Vietnam's population will decline in another 35 years, after reaching zero growth by 2069.