Vietnam province to reward families with two daughters

The move is part of the province’s 2019 to 2025 population policy and the certificates will be issued yearly, as long as the families continue to have exactly two daughters, local media reported, citing Doan Quoc That, deputy chief of the province's legislative People’s Council.

Hamlets in the province that manage to maintain the two-children-per-family population model for three years straight will get VND3 million ($128) and five years VND5 million ($214), as rewards from the People’s Councils in districts, cities and communes.

Districts and towns in the province that manage to maintain the same population model for three and five years straight will get VND15 million and VND25 million, respectively.

This is the first time that Hau Giang has embarked on such a population policy, said That.

When asked if the new policy was influenced by the gender imbalance in the province, That only said that it was based on Vietnam’s national policies on population.

The total cost to implement the policy from 2019 to 2025 is estimated at over VND17.7 billion ($760,000).

This isn’t the first time Vietnam has had population policies that reward families for bearing the right number of children. Provinces have rewarded families and districts that met certain population criteria, such as having only one or two children per family, either with cash or certificates.

Vietnam has had a maximum two children per couple policy since the 1960s, but the government is now encouraging families to have two children as the country faces gender imbalance issues and an aging population.

The male-to-female ratio in Vietnam has been steadily increasing, from 110 boys for every 100 girls born in 2006 to 112 boys for every 100 girls born in 2015, according to official statistics.

As many as 4.3 million Vietnamese men are likely to remain lifelong bachelors in the next 30 years, Mai Xuan Phuong, a senior official from the Population and Family Planning under the Health Ministry, told the media at a 2016 workshop.

Vietnam reached a turning point in 2015 when it started to become one of the countries with the fastest aging populations in the world, the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs said in a 2016 report.

The number of Vietnamese people over the age of 65 will rise from 6.3 million last year to a projected 18 million by 2040, accounting for more than 18 percent of the population and transforming Vietnam from a young society into an old one, the report quoted the United Nations as saying.

Nguyen Thien Nhan, then Party chief of HCMC, said at a meeting in July last year that women need to have at least two babies each, warning that the city’s current birth rate of 1.46 babies per woman may stall its economic growth.

Nguyen Dinh Cu, former head of the Institute for Population and Social Studies,said in a press exchange last year that Vietnam should even scrap its two-child policy altogether.

Currently, government officials and Party members who have more than two children would be disciplined, not being entitled for promotion.