Rapid urbanisation and a naturally increasing population in recent years has markedly raised the number of students at kindergarten, primary and secondary education levels in northern Ninh Binh province (Photo: VNA)Hanoi (VNA) - Population quality increased remarkably as the infantmortality rate for children aged under five years old and the fatality rate formothers reduced, while average life expectancy rate started to rise.
Butit is time for Vietnam to shift its population policy’s focus from birthcontrol to a more holistic integration of population variables in developmentplanning, experts say.
According to Le Canh Nhac, Deputy General Director of the General Department ofPopulation and Family Planning, under the Ministry of Health, the achievementsof the country’s fertility reduction is due to the agencies’ dissemination andpeople’s awareness on population.
Additionally,the rapid development of the economy, social improvement, the process ofurbanisation, and the growing international integration of Vietnam also createsfavourable conditions and strong support for the trend of birth reduction, Nhacadded.
Accordingto the forecast, Vietnam’s population will continue to grow but the birth ratewill slow down and reach 100 million by 2025.
Highpopulation density will be a big draw for investors but also a challenge forfood security and energy, he said.
Since2006, Vietnam entered the era of a "golden population structure”. Itbrought many benefits for labour but also put pressure on many other sectors,especially the availability of jobs with high productivity and incomes.
Vietnamhas also entered the stage of an "aging population" from 2012, whilethe proportion of people aged 60 or older reached 10 percent of the totalpopulation and will become the "aging population" in 2032.
Theseissues have put pressure on social security for the elderly in the developmentprocess.
Aserious imbalance in the sex ratio at birth is also a challenge for Vietnam’spopulation, leading to unsustainable social development.
Accordingto the census of population and housing in 2009, this ratio was 110.6 boys forevery 100 girls, and now stands at 112.8 males for every 100 females.
Overthe past few years, Vietnam has made remarkable progress in implementing theMillennium Development Goals (MDGs). As a result, Vietnam’s human developmentindex (HDI) has sharply increased in three categories: Average per capitaincome, life expectancy and education. The quality of the population hasincreased, but not to a high degree, according to Nhac.
In1992, Vietnam’s HDI value for 1992 was 0.486, ranking 120 out of 174 countries.
Theindex was 0.666 in 2014, ranking 116 out of 188 countries, according to theHuman Development Report 2015 released on February 5 by the United NationsDevelopment Programme (UNDP).
Thehuman development indices are based on four pillars: HDI, Inequality-adjustedHDI, Gender Development Index, and the Gender Inequality Index.
Vietnamshould enact new policies to address population problems arising, and grasp theopportunity and contribute to sustainable development for the country, he said.
“Inthe future, the focus of population policy will shift to population anddevelopment instead of population and family planning,” said Nhac.
Theshift is aimed to deal with entire issues of population with contents such asmaintaining the replacement rate, reducing gender imbalance at birth, takingadvantage of the golden population, adapting to an aging population, adjustingreasonable population distribution and improving population quality.
However,the new policy approach to population would not narrowly focus on familyplanning or the health aspects of population issues, he said.-VNA
VNA
