No discipline, don't let gender imbalance get worse

Recently, the Politburo agreed not to discipline cases of giving birth to a third child or more, and not to retroactively discipline cases that have already been disciplined.

This policy was introduced to address the problem of the increasingly aging population in Vietnam. It is forecasted that by 2036, Vietnam will officially enter the period of aging population structure; in 2039, the golden population structure period will end and the population structure will enter the period of very aging population structure.

This entails many consequences and difficulties such as maintaining economic growth rate, requiring improvement of human resource quality and other productivity increases to maintain growth.

In addition, population aging will also put increasing pressure on the pension and health care systems; creating additional challenges for national financial resources. The elderly care system will have to be constantly strengthened, increasing its capacity to ensure…

Regarding this issue, recently, the Department of Population (Ministry of Health) proposed to remove the regulation that each couple can only have 1-2 children and give couples the right to decide on the number of children, time of birth, and interval between births.

This information received great attention from public opinion, especially from party members - those who previously, when having a third child, violated population policy and were disciplined, except in a few specific cases.

The information from the Politburo was just released and was still “hot”, a friend of mine texted happily: “You can give birth comfortably now, my friend”. I know that my friend has longed to have more children. Because her husband is the eldest son of the family. However, she and her husband gave birth to two daughters. Her husband’s parents once stopped eating when she and her husband said they would not have any more children, because they were both party members. Because they still wanted to strive for their career, and then thought about their social responsibilities, there was a time when the couple fell into a deadlock, their life was very suffocating.

Now, with this information, your husband and wife are no different from "opening the flag in their stomachs". I guess, not only my friend's family, many other people are also happy. Because in Vietnam, influenced by Eastern culture, many people have the idea of ​​"having more children means more wealth" and also the idea of ​​"respecting men, despising women". Although society has developed, social awareness has changed a lot, becoming more civilized, but those traditional ideas have not disappeared.

I just wonder, when this policy comes into practice, will there be a situation where people and party members “go wild” and have a third child? If we only have children based on the idea that “having more children is more money”, then it is not worth discussing. But what about the sudden increase in people having a third child to have a son to “continue the family line”? We must consider this issue in advance to have a response.

For many years, the gender imbalance at birth in Vietnam has always been high, currently at more than 113 boys/100 girls (the natural balance is from 103 - 107 boys/100 girls). In Hai Duong, this ratio is much higher. According to statistics from the Department of Population and Family Planning of Hai Duong province, the gender ratio at birth in 2024 is 117.3 boys/100 girls. The consequences of gender imbalance at birth on society are not small. Not to mention the higher gender imbalance at birth, if this continues, it is predicted that by 2050, there will be millions of Vietnamese men who will be single.

To prevent this forecast from becoming more serious when the decision not to discipline people who have a third child is officially issued, one of the measures that needs to be taken is to strictly handle those who violate the rules of choosing the gender of the fetus as desired. Medical facilities and medical practitioners must strictly comply with the provisions of the law and not assist people in choosing the gender of the fetus.

When giving birth to a third child or more, each person needs to consider the pros and cons for themselves, their family and society. Those who are old, in poor health, or in difficult circumstances should not, because of the loosened policies, try to have more sons or have children without planning, affecting their quality of life.