Vietnam scraps two-child policy as it tackles falling birthrate
Guardian3 days
Vietnam Scraps Two-Child Policy Amid Declining Birth Rates
Above: A family rides a motorcycle along a street in Hanoi on June 4, 2025. Image copyright: Nhac Nguyen/Contributor/AFP via Getty Images
The Spin
Pro-government narrative
Decades of thoughtful population stewardship have blessed Vietnam with a golden demographic dividend — 67.5% working-age citizens fueling remarkable growth. Yet this triumph teeters on a knife's edge: fertility at 1.96 children per woman. The architects of success must now become masters of delicate transition, or risk squandering their masterwork.
Opposition narrative
Decades of draconian population controls — dismissing state workers for third children and expelling Party members for "excess" births — have engineered Vietnam into a demographic trap. Now, with fertility plummeting to 1.91 children per woman, the authoritarian architects of family limitation confront their own creation: a nation racing toward demographic collapse.