Young Vietnamese "afraid to get married, lazy to have children"

The trend of being reluctant to get married, not wanting to have children or having very few children has appeared in Vietnam and is especially alarming in some urban areas where the economic conditions are developed. More and more young people are choosing to stay single, not marry, have children or choose the DINK lifestyle ("Double Income, No Kids").

Accordingly, data released by the General Statistics Office shows that over the past 30 years, the trend of marriage and birth rate in Vietnam has changed dramatically. The age of marriage has increased sharply, the marriage rate has decreased, causing the birth rate to decrease by half over the past 30 years.

Specifically, in the period 1989-2023, the average age of first marriage for men increased from 24.4 years old and for women from 23.2 years old to 29.3 years old for men and 25.1 years old for women in 2023. The rate of single people is also increasing rapidly, from 6.23% in 2004 to 10.1% in 2019.

The trend of not wanting or having only one child is spreading in urban areas, especially large cities like Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. The birth rate has also decreased significantly, from 3.8 children in 1989 to less than 2 children in 2023. In the period 2013-2023, Vietnam's population increased by an average of only about 1 million people per year.

Notably, in Ho Chi Minh City, statistics from the General Statistics Office's report last July showed that the average age of first marriage in Ho Chi Minh City was 30.4, a record in Vietnam. The average number of children of a woman in the city of childbearing age was 1.32.

High housing prices are the main cause

VARS believes that although there are many reasons for this trend, it mainly stems from financial issues.

This unit cited a recent survey showing that 62% of about 400,000 young people participating in the survey chose to get married after the age of 30 because they still had worries about making ends meet. This worry is greatly affected by housing prices. As housing prices increase, so do rental prices, putting pressure on people's living costs.

Many young people think they must buy a house before getting married or having children, but because real estate prices are skyrocketing, it is not easy to buy, so they have to "work day and night" to be able to buy a house, missing the golden time to get married and have children.

Rent and monthly living expenses take up almost all of their salary, forcing many young couples to only have one child or delay having children.

For example, Ho Chi Minh City has the highest housing prices in the country, and is also the city with the latest age of marriage and the lowest birth rate in the country. In the period 2016-2018, housing prices in Ho Chi Minh City continuously increased and reached a new "peak". In addition, this locality also has the highest spatial cost of living index (SCOLI) in the country.

Since 2019, while housing prices in Ho Chi Minh City have slowed down, housing prices in Hanoi have continued to increase. Hanoi has also "risen" to become the most expensive city in the country. Up to now, apartment prices in Hanoi seem to be following the trend of the Ho Chi Minh City market 5 years ago.

Along with the trend of "being afraid to get married and lazy to have children", in recent years, many investors have increased the proportion of developing small-sized apartments, suitable for the needs of single buyers, young couples who do not have or have only one child. These apartments are also always at the top in terms of transaction liquidity.

Not only in Vietnam, the trend of late marriage or being single is also constantly increasing, especially in developing countries. These countries have implemented solutions to support young people.

For example, Japan supports newly married couples with an amount of 600,000 yen (more than 130 million VND) to cover the cost of buying, renting a new house, deposit, key money, regular service fees, brokerage fees; the cost of moving to a new residence and the cost of paying a moving company and transporters.

Despite these efforts, marriage and birth rates in the above countries have improved very slowly.

Therefore, the above unit believes that, in order to encourage marriage before the age of 30 and increase the birth rate, on the basis of taking advantage of the experience of other countries, the Government needs to drastically implement existing measures and research and develop clearer incentive policies such as prioritizing support for buying social housing at one time for couples who have given birth to two children. In particular, the most practical root solution to the problem of "fear of marriage, laziness to give birth" is to solve the housing problem.

To solve the housing problem for the majority of people, in addition to increasing the supply of social housing in urban areas, the State needs to study intervention policies to develop affordable commercial housing.