The inhabitants of Vietnam reached the 100 million mark in 2023. Fifty years in the past, in 1976, when it used to be reunified because the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, the rustic had fewer than part as many population (46 million). 100 years in the past, it had just one 6th as many (16 million) (Determine 1). After we evaluate the present demographics to different Asian international locations, we will be able to establish patterns explicit to Vietnam.
Determine 1. Inhabitants of Vietnam since 1900 and projections as much as 2100.
Determine taken from Pison and Scornet, 2026, Inhabitants and Societies, 645, Writer supplied (no reuse)
Its inhabitants is more likely to proceed rising and may just succeed in a top of 110 million via the mid-Twenty first century, in step with the United International locations’ medium inhabitants projections. Those projections look ahead to that the inhabitants would possibly then shrink go into reverse to 92 million via the 12 months 2100. They suppose that fertility, estimated at a median of one.9 kids in step with girl in 2023, will decline to one.7 kids in step with girl via 2100.
How has the inhabitants of Vietnam reached 100 million? Why is it most likely that expansion will quickly prevent? What’s going to the rustic’s inhabitants seem like sooner or later?
Enlargement is connected to the demographic transition
The numerous building up in Vietnam’s inhabitants right through the 20 th and early Twenty first century is connected to the rustic’s demographic transition. Like far and wide on this planet, mortality has fallen, specifically little one mortality, resulting in an way over births over deaths that has fuelled inhabitants expansion. The tempo of expansion reached a prime of over 3% in step with 12 months within the mid-Nineteen Fifties and has since slowed 12 months on 12 months, essentially because of falling fertility.
In 2023, the typical collection of small children born to Vietnamese ladies is 1.9, as up to now discussed; this determine used to be round 6 within the Sixties and early Seventies. Determine 2 (beneath) permits for a comparability of fertility traits in Vietnam with the ones in 3 different East and Southeast Asian international locations: China, South Korea, and Thailand.
Determine 2. Evaluate of fertility evolution in Vietnam, South Korea, China, and Thailand (1950–2023).
Determine taken from Pison and Scornet, 2026, Inhabitants and Societies, 645, Writer supplied (no reuse)
Vietnam’s one- or two-child coverage
80 years in the past, excited about speedy inhabitants expansion, the government in North Vietnam applied a coverage to restrict births. In 1963, the federal government first restricted households to 3 kids, setting up two or 3 kids every spaced 5 to six years aside because the norm.
The coverage then changed into extra restrictive in 1988, with the guideline converting to at least one or two kids in step with couple. It implemented to households dwelling in cities or in densely populated spaces (business zones, rural areas of the Purple River and Mekong Deltas, and the coastal simple provinces).
However, the coverage used to be much less strict against ethnic minorities from deficient, remoted, and carefully populated areas, who had been approved to have 3 kids.
Did delivery keep watch over coverage have an affect?
Did Vietnam’s delivery limitation coverage reason its decline in fertility? This query can also be posed to all international locations within the International South, specifically in Asia, the place governments have attempted to restrict births when the inhabitants used to be rising swiftly and the place fertility has considerably declined. It’s the case in South Korea, China, and Thailand, the place the decline came about previous and extra swiftly than in Vietnam, with fertility charges achieving even decrease ranges in 2023, respectively, 0.7, 1.0, and 1.2 kids in step with girl (Determine 2).
The Chinese language executive, for instance, began looking to prohibit births from the mid-Nineteen Fifties, however the coverage used to be no longer showed till the Seventies and used to be due to this fact made extra restrictive, particularly in 1979 with the one-child coverage.
In Thailand, fertility fell concurrently in China and similarly swiftly. However as a substitute of being coercive, its coverage because the Seventies
has consisted of incentives, such because the liberalisation of abortions and sterilisation, in addition to monetary enhance for education and family farming for {couples} having a most of 2 kids. The speedy fall in fertility befell in South Korea a number of years previous, accompanied via measures aimed toward selling birth control and sterilisation, but in addition with out coercive measures.
Vietnam’s delivery limitation coverage ended up someplace between that of China’s coercive one and the ones of South Korea and Thailand, either one of which used incentivising measures.
The true affect of those insurance policies, on the other hand, is hard to measure. Whilst fertility fell similarly swiftly within the Seventies and Eighties in China and Thailand, this used to be essentially as a result of households in those international locations sought after fewer kids at the moment—simply as in different international locations right through classes of progressed training and dwelling stipulations.
Converting direction: When the State seeks to spice up the delivery charge
Enthusiastic about its swiftly aging inhabitants (see the inhabitants pyramids in Determine 3), the Vietnamese executive steadily at ease the one- or two-child coverage within the overdue 2010s prior to totally forsaking it in 2025 to recommend two-child households. As in different spaces, Vietnam adopted China’s instance with this coverage reversal, the latter having abolished its one-child coverage in 2015. China due to this fact applied the “three-child policy” in 2021, it sounds as if to no impact to this point, as Chinese language fertility hasn’t ever been decrease.
Determine 3. Inhabitants age pyramid for Vietnam in 2025 and projection for 2075.
Determine taken from Pison and Scornet, 2026, Inhabitants and Societies, 645, Writer supplied (no reuse)
Intercourse variety
Normally talking, 105 boys are born for each 100 ladies. In Vietnam, the percentage of male newborns has greater because the 2000s, with the male-to-female delivery ratio achieving 114 boys in step with 100 ladies in the second one part of the 2010s (Determine 4). A equivalent building up have been seen two decades up to now in South Korea and China, precursors on this recognize.
Determine 4. Male-to-female delivery ratio in Vietnam, South Korea, China and Thailand since 1950.
Determine taken from Pison and Scornet, 2026, Inhabitants and Societies, 645, Writer supplied (no reuse)
The rise is defined via a powerful need in those international locations to have a minimum of one boy and via {couples}’ selective abortion of ladies to reach this. Extra exactly, the phenomenon effects from the convergence of 3 components: lowered circle of relatives measurement, need for a son at any prices, and the vast availability of ultrasound scans.
On the other hand, this trend isn’t seen in all Asian international locations: Thailand is a notable exception. In India, it’s only seen within the north of the rustic. Likewise, in Vietnam, the north is extra affected than the south, with a specifically prime male-to-female delivery ratio observed within the Purple River Delta and the mountainous areas of the north (Determine 5).
This north–south divide is connected to cultural variations. The Purple River Delta, within the north, used to be occupied via China for greater than one thousand years and is the area of Vietnam maximum closely influenced via Chinese language tradition and Confucian traditions.
In areas like this, boys are ceaselessly most well-liked as a result of they undergo accountability for proceeding the circle of relatives lineage and enjoyable the
legal responsibility of filial piety manifested throughout the worship of ancestors. The Mekong Delta within the south, then again, used to be for a number of centuries a part of the Khmer Empire and is culturally very similar to Cambodia and Thailand.
Determine 5. Male-to-female ratio at delivery via main area in Vietnam, 2024.
Determine taken from Pison and Scornet, 2026, Inhabitants and Societies, 645, Writer supplied (no reuse)
What are the results for generations with an important male surplus?
The imbalance within the intercourse ratio at delivery has been reducing for a number of years and it is going to in the end go back to its customary stage, because it has in South Korea. On the other hand, generations of Vietnamese kids with an important surplus of boys have already been born. Those generations are more likely to revel in the results of this imbalance all the way through their lives, specifically when they’re sufficiently old to begin in search of a long-term spouse: ladies, within the minority, will haven’t any bother discovering a spouse, while some boys would possibly to find themselves with out one.
Inhabitants projections want to take the phenomena under consideration: the primary generations affected, the ones born within the mid-2000s, at the moment are sufficiently old to have kids; ladies, of whom there are fewer, will give delivery to fewer kids in general, no longer sufficient to interchange their era.
For a ratio of 105 boys in step with 100 ladies, every girl must undergo 2.1 kids to make sure alternative. For a ratio of 113 boys in step with 100 ladies, as in the second one part of the 2010s, this determine must be 2.2. Inhabitants expansion in Vietnam may just decelerate much more briefly than the fertility decline would counsel. Inhabitants aging would then happen extra swiftly, as is already the case in South Korea and China, the place intercourse variety started two decades previous than in Vietnam.
Will fertility in Vietnam apply the similar trend as that of its neighbours? After declining from the Seventies to the Nineties, the entire fertility charge turns out to have stabilised at round two kids in step with girl since 2000. Will it stay at this stage or fall to even decrease ranges, because it has already achieved within the two main areas of the South (Southeast and Mekong Delta) and as in South Korea, China, and Thailand?
Those international locations have so far led the way in which for Vietnam relating to fertility traits. Vietnam’s fertility charge may just fall even additional over the approaching years if it continues to apply the instance of its neighbours.
This newsletter is tailored from an editorial revealed via the authors in Inhabitants & Societies, 645, “Vietnam: home to 100 million people today, how many tomorrow?”.
