In 1996, as Vietnam was emerging from decades of economic isolation, one thing was booming: its population. Vietnamese women gave birth to an average of more than three children each, prompting policymakers to promote family-planning campaigns and expand access to contraception.
Three decades later, Vietnam faces the opposite problem. The country's economy has become one of Asia's growth stories, ranking as the 32nd largest economy in the world in 2025, with GDP multiplying many times over since the Đổi Mới reforms. Yet its fertility rate has fallen to a record low of 1.91 children per woman in 2024, below the replacement level of 2.1.
According to Vietnam's General Statistics Office, the country now has one of the lowest fertility rates in Southeast Asia. The regional average stands at around 2.0 children per woman, while Vietnam trails behind only Brunei (1.8), Malaysia (1.6), Thailand (1.0) and Singapore (1.0) in having lower birth rates.
One might assume that declining birth rates are the concern of rich countries. Yet Vietnam remains a middle-income economy. That makes the issue more pressing. The country's challenge is not merely that fewer babies are being born, but whether it can maintain its demographic advantage long enough to become a high-income nation before its population grows old.
Growing old before growing rich
For decades, Vietnam benefited from what economists call a "golden population structure": a large working-age population supporting a relatively small number of dependents. That demographic dividend helped fuel industrialisation, manufacturing growth and rising incomes.
Now policymakers worry that the window may close before Vietnam completes its economic transition.
The concern is understandable. Countries such as Japan and South Korea entered periods of population ageing after achieving high-income status. Vietnam may face the same demographic pressures while still climbing the development ladder.
But the public debate often begins from the wrong premise. Falling birth rates are treated primarily as a national economic problem when they are first and foremost the result of millions of personal decisions.
Down the childless path
Dating, marriage and having children are intensely personal choices. The fact that more people can choose to remain single or childless than in previous generations, when social pressure to marry was far stronger, could be considered one of the quieter social transformations of modern Asia.
Yet not everyone who remains childless has actively chosen that path.
Birth rates are especially low in Vietnam's major cities. Ho Chi Minh City's fertility rate fell to just 1.32 children per woman in 2023, among the lowest in the country. At the same time, surveys suggest that younger Vietnamese are increasingly delaying marriage and parenthood.
According to a report by Happiness Saigon, 75.9% of Gen Z respondents said they would rather establish a stable life with their partner before having children. More than half said they were comfortable delaying or even foregoing marriage and parenthood altogether.
The Dual Income, No Kids lifestyle (DINK) is often portrayed as a cultural shift. It may be more accurately understood as an economic one.
How can people be expected to raise children when many struggle to achieve the lifestyle they want for themselves? In a country where housing costs continue to rise faster than wages and urban living grows increasingly expensive, financial security has become a prerequisite for family formation rather than a consequence of it.
$76 to buy a baby
Vietnam's government has begun experimenting with incentives. Under a new policy, women who have two children before age 35 will receive financial support of at least 2 million dong ($76).
The gesture is symbolic. Whether it will change behaviour is another matter. Because, realistically, what can $76 buy?
Many wealthy countries have spent decades attempting to raise fertility through cash payments, tax incentives and childcare subsidies, with mixed results. South Korea has spent billions of dollars on pro-natalist policies while maintaining one of the world's lowest birth rates. Singapore offers extensive family support programmes yet continues to struggle with fertility decline.
Research increasingly suggests that money alone is rarely enough.
For many women, the issue is not simply the cost of raising children but the opportunity cost of having them. As the sociologist Wei-Jun Jean Yeung notes, women across East Asia have gained unprecedented access to higher education and careers. Marriage and motherhood can still mean taking on a disproportionate share of childcare, elder care and domestic work.
In that sense, fertility policy is also labor policy, housing policy and gender policy.
Countries such as Spain, Germany and Japan increasingly focus on paid parental leave, childcare support and encouraging fathers to take greater responsibility at home. Such measures do not necessarily restore replacement-level fertility. But they make parenthood less economically and professionally punishing.
Is the golden population ratio that important?
The assumption underlying much of the debate is that falling birth rates inevitably threaten economic growth.
The evidence is less clear-cut. Many developed countries with low fertility continue to maintain high living standards through productivity gains, technological advancement and immigration. A smaller population does not automatically mean a poorer country.
Vietnam's challenge, then, may not be simply producing more children before the demographic dividend disappears. It may be investing more effectively in the people who already exist.
Before asking citizens to have more babies, policymakers may need to answer a simpler question: can young Vietnamese afford the lives they want today?
Because if they cannot, no amount of encouragement is likely to persuade them to take on the far greater responsibility of raising a family tomorrow.