Vietnam enacts new law, offers childbirth bonuses

A year after scrapping its longstanding two-child limit, Vietnam enacted its first Population Law on Wednesday, aiming to encourage childbirth amid rapid aging and falling fertility.

The new law and related regulations introduced a range of measures, including wider financial assistance, longer maternity and paternity leave, and expanded healthcare support for families with newborns.

Under the new rules, eligible women giving birth from July 1 will receive a minimum subsidy of 2 million Vietnamese dong ($76). Beneficiaries include women from very small ethnic minority groups, those living in areas with below-replacement fertility rates, and women who have two children before the age of 35.

Female employees who give birth to a second child are now entitled to seven months of maternity leave, up from six months, while paternity leave has doubled to 10 working days. Subsidies for prenatal and newborn screening will be available to eligible groups from this month, before expanding nationwide in January.

"This is a significant shift in approach," Pham Thi Lan, head of population and development at the United Nations Population Fund in Vietnam, told AFP.

"We are moving from controlling family planning to focusing on population development," she said, adding the new legislation addresses Vietnam's demographic shift and empowers couples to make their own reproductive decisions.

However, she said sustained support for child-rearing is more influential than one-off benefits.

Amid the risk of getting old before getting rich, Vietnam is navigating declining fertility and a rapidly aging population.

The country of more than 100 million people saw its fertility rate fall to a record low of 1.91 children per woman in 2024, below the replacement level of 2.1, according to the Health Ministry.

"It is the right time for Vietnam ... to implement the new fertility incentives, such as extended maternity leave and cash allowances," Giang Thanh Long, an economics professor at the National Economics University in Vietnam, told China Daily.

Complementary policies

Cash bonuses have limited impact on long-term fertility decisions and should be complemented by affordable childcare and housing, family-friendly workplaces, better reproductive healthcare, and greater gender equality at home, Long said.

In May, the Health Ministry set a target of raising the annual fertility rate to 2 percent by 2030.

While pro-natalist policies can help ease financial burdens and slow the decline in births, Long said restoring fertility to the replacement level of 2.1 alone would not resolve Vietnam's aging population or labor shortages.

The country's long-term development after its "demographic dividend" — when the working-age population outnumbers dependent children and older adults, which is expected to end in 2036 — will depend on productivity growth, higher-quality human capital and other factors, he said.

To secure its economic future while adapting to an aging population, Vietnam needs strategies to transition from a labor-intensive economy to a productivity-driven one, Long said.

kelly@chinadailyapac.com