The Vietnamese government is encouraging young people to marry by age 30 and have their second child by age 35, a response to concerns over declining fertility rates in some parts of the country.

Late last month, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc approved a birthrate adjustment program scheduled through 2030 that aims to help the Southeast Asian nation implement its national population strategy.

The program is meant to increase the birthrate by ten percent in 21 provinces and cities, including Ho Chi Minh City, Ba Ria – Vung Tau, Binh Duong, Can Tho, Hau Giang, and Dong Thap, where married couples are averaging birth rates below two.

According to population experts, the falling birth rates in Ho Chi Minh City could spell disaster for economic growth and welfare systems in Vietnam’s most populous city.

The southern metropolis has a permanent population of nine million and a population density of 4,363 people per square kilometer, the highest in all of Vietnam, according to a 2019 population census.

Those numbers may, however, begin to decrease as city dwellers continue to decide against having children.

The city’s 2018 total fertility rate (TFR) — the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime — was just 1.33 children, according to statistics from the municipal Population and Family Planning Department.

Meanwhile, the government’s new program also targets to reduce the rate in 33 localities where birthrates are higher than 2.2 children per couple.

The nine remaining provinces and cities, including the capital city of Hanoi, that average 2.2 children born per woman in her lifetime are asked to maintain this ‘replacement fertility rate’ — the TFR at which women give birth to enough babies to maintain population levels.

According to the program, localities with fertility rates of 2.2 or below should educate their residents on the benefits of having two children, the disadvantages of giving birth later in life, and the familial and socio-economic impacts of bearing too few children.

The program also urges local authorities to enact measures aimed at supporting married couples with two children.

Such measures include the introduction of marriage and family consultation services, including dating clubs and pre-marriage health consulting, and the expansion of worker-friendly services, including babysitting, milk banks, and family medicine.

The construction of babysitting facilities and kindergartens, especially in economic, industrial and urban areas, should be given special attention, according to the program.

Mother and baby healthcare and malnutrition prevention consultations must be accessible to pregnant women and mothers.

Married couples with two children should be made eligible for reductions in their personal income taxes, support in renting apartments or owning affordable housing, and priority admission for their children into public schools, as well as financial assistance for their kids’ education.

Vietnam’s population hit 96.2 million in 2019, ranking third in Southeast Asia and 15th globally, according to the 2019 census.

However, the country had reached a turning point in 2015 when it moved up on the list of countries with the fastest-aging populations in the world, the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids, and Social Affairs said in a 2016 report.

Several localities have seen birth rates fall far below two children per woman.

Population experts pointed out low fertility rates could result in a rapidly aging population and a strained social welfare system.

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