The Ministry of Health proposes to increase maternity leave to 7 months to encourage childbirth.

On March 10, Mr. Le Thanh Dung, Director of the Department of Population (Ministry of Health) said that this unit has advised the Ministry of Health to submit to the Government a proposal to develop a Population Law and a draft Population Law.

The latest draft of the Population Law proposes groups of policies related to the goal of maintaining replacement fertility; reducing gender imbalance at birth and bringing the sex ratio at birth back to a natural balance; improving population quality...

According to Mr. Dung, compared to the draft that was released for comments in September 2024, this draft of the Population Law is still expected to give couples and individuals the right to decide on having children, the time of giving birth, the number of children and the interval between births in accordance with the age, health status, learning conditions, labor, work, income and child-rearing of individuals and couples.

The difference is that this draft proposes to allow female workers to extend their maternity leave from 6 months to 7 months when giving birth to their second child.

At the same time, create conditions for women who give birth to two children in industrial parks, export processing zones and provinces and cities with low birth rates to receive support to rent or buy social housing.

According to current regulations on maternity leave, female employees who give birth are entitled to 6 months of maternity leave before and after giving birth. In case a female employee gives birth to twins or more, from the second child onwards, the mother is entitled to 1 additional month of leave for each child. The maximum maternity leave before giving birth is 2 months.

According to Mr. Dung, the proposal to extend maternity leave from 6 to 7 months for female workers when giving birth to a second child is considered a solution by the state to encourage people to have 2 children. However, this issue requires the cooperation and sharing of social insurance and enterprises - the owners of labor.

Vietnam officially reached the replacement fertility level in 2006 (2.09 children/woman) and has been relatively stable around the replacement fertility level (around 2.1 children/woman) for the 15 years up to 2021.

However, in the last 3 years, 2022-2024, the birth rate has begun to show signs of rapid decline, in 2024 it was only 1.91 children/woman, the lowest level recorded in history. The Ministry of Health predicts that Vietnam's birth rate will continue to decline in the coming time.

According to forecasts, if the birth rate continues to decrease, by 2039, Vietnam will end its golden population period, in 2042 the working-age population will peak, and after 2054 the population will begin to grow negatively.

In the following 5-year period, the population decreased by an average of 0.04% per year, and this decrease by the end of the forecast period (from 2064-2069) was 0.18%, equivalent to an average decrease of 200,000 people/year.

Meanwhile, in the average fertility scenario, this negative growth period will only begin in 2069.

At that time, the consequences of a prolonged low birth rate will lead to a shortage of labor force, a decline in population size, accelerated population aging, and negative impacts on socio-economic development.