Hanoi: Vietnam abolished its long-standing two-child limit on Tuesday to try and reverse declining birth rates and ease the pressures of an aging population.
The National Assembly passed amendments scrapping rules that limit families to having one or two children, state media Vietnam News Agency reported on Wednesday.
The rules were usually stricter for Communist Party members, who could miss out on promotions or bonuses if they had a third child.
Vietnamese families are having fewer children than ever before. The birth rate in 2021 was 2.11 children per woman, just over the replacement rate required for a population to avoid shrinking over the long term.
Since then, the birth rate has steadily declined: to 2.01 in 2022, 1.96 in 2023 and 1.91 in 2024. Vietnam isn’t the only Asian country with low fertility.