According to data published by the General Statistics Office (GSO), over the past 30 years, the trend of marriage and birth rate in our country 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, from 1989 to 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 in big 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 GSO report last July showed that the average age of first marriage in Ho Chi Minh City is 30.4, a record in Vietnam. The average number of children of a woman in the city of childbearing age is 1.32.

Not only in Vietnam, the trend of late marriage or being single is also constantly increasing, especially in developing countries. According to statistics from the World Bank, 89 out of 189 countries and territories in the world currently have a total fertility rate below the replacement level of 2.1 children/woman, while 50 years ago there were only 8 countries. The average age of first marriage in Japan (34), Italy (34), France (32.9), Norway (33.1), Germany (32.8).

In addition, the DINK lifestyle (“Double Income, No Kids”) has become increasingly popular in Asia recently. In addition to subjective reasons such as the desire to live freely and without constraints, with a tight budget, these couples feel that they can only afford one of two things: either buying a house or having children.

According to realtor.com's calculations, buying a home will only cost about 50% more per month than raising a child.

The trend of not wanting or having children is spreading in urban areas, partly due to rising housing prices.

Explaining the reason for "fear of marriage, lazy to have children", VARS said that although there are many reasons for this choice, it mainly stems from financial problems. A recent quick survey on VTV24 fanpage about the reasons for wanting to get married after the age of 30 also showed that up to 62% of about 400,000 young people participating in the survey chose to get married after 30 because they still have worries about food and money.

This concern about food and money is greatly affected by housing prices. Increasing housing prices, along with increasing rents, are putting pressure on people's living costs.

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

To solve the current problem, in developed countries, the Government has introduced a series of measures to encourage young people to get married and increase the birth rate. In addition to welfare policies, most of the other incentives are cash subsidies for renting and buying houses.

Specifically, 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. At the same time, support the cost of moving to a new place and the cost of paying the moving company and transporters.

In Busan, South Korea, newlyweds will also receive 30 million won (about 550 million) for a deposit to buy a house or 800,000 won (more than 14 million) per month in rent subsidies for 5 years.

In Singapore, the country with the highest housing prices in Asia, young couples can receive housing subsidies of up to SGD 80,000 (about 1.5 billion). First-time home buyers, young couples or families with children, will be given priority when buying a new apartment.

Despite these efforts, the marriage and birth rates in the above countries have improved very slowly. Meanwhile, in Vietnam, the measures to address the situation of promoting marriage before the age of 30 and encouraging fertility are still very general, certainly not as effective as expected.

Therefore, VARS believes that, in order to encourage marriage before the age of 30 and increase the birth rate, based on the experience of other countries, the Government needs to vigorously implement existing measures and research and develop clearer incentive policies such as prioritizing one-time support for purchasing social housing for couples who have given birth to two children.

Ha Anh