VNExpress-July 17
Vietnam’s population of 100 million people means trouble could haunt the country’s demographic future sooner rather than later, with a quickly aging population a major challenge. The falling children’s mortality rate and the increase of life expectancy is making Vietnam more rapidly reach the aging population figure that spells the end of the “golden population period,” which is defined by the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) as having 30% of the population’s children aged below 14, and 15% of all people aged 65 or more. This means that Vietnam will have less working-age people and more people in retirement age, which can lead to numerous burdens on society.
Vietnam currently stands third in Southeast Asia, after Thailand and Singapore, in the proportion of population aged 65 and over, while its income per capita ranks only sixth in the region. With its population hitting 100 million last April according to the General Statistics Office, Vietnam is now the 15th most populous country in the world and its population density ranks 41th. When it comes to yearly income per capita, Vietnam is ranked 121st at $4,010. This figure is 10 times lower than that of Japan and 19 times lower than that of the U.S., placing Vietnam in the lower-middle grouping of nations. Vietnam’s population has doubled in the 48 years since its reunification, jumping from 47 million to 100 million. Over the previous century, Vietnam’s yearly population growth has always been higher than the global average. But that trend shifted in the 2000s, following a decade of family planning policies that limited the number of children born in a family to two. Birth rates are falling across the nation, but the rates themselves differ in different areas. The waves of migrants heading for big cities have also caused an imbalance in population distribution between urban and rural regions. As a result, average incomes and lifespans between localities are markedly different as well. Those in southeastern Vietnam, home to the country’s manufacturing hubs, enjoy the highest income among all areas in the country. Read more at:
