The decades-long policy Vietnam is scrapping to overhaul birth rate
The new regulation grants families greater freedom in deciding how many children to have.
Vietnam's fertility rate has dropped from a stable 2.1 between 1999 and 2022 to 1.91 in 2024, marking the third consecutive year of decline.
Experts attribute the declining birth rate to work stress, financial pressures, career ambitions, and shifting social norms, particularly in urban areas like Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.
Vietnam also faces a gender imbalance due to a cultural preference for sons, with the health ministry reportedly proposing to triple fines to about $3,800 to curb foetal gender selection.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
15 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Couples using IVF to conceive may be more successful during the summer, research suggests
Couples using IVF to have a baby may be more successful during the summer, research suggests. A study involving 1,100 women undergoing fertility treatment suggests a pregnancy may be up to twice as likely when the weather is sunnier and warmer. Even in spring, the pregnancy rate was 75 per cent higher than during the colder months, scientists found. They suggest that higher levels of vitamin D – the so-called 'sunshine vitamin' – may improve hormonal balance and boost fertility naturally. The pregnancy rate particularly soared when the weather outside was a balmy 26 to 30 Celsius, which suggested patients having IVF 'may benefit from treatments conducted in this temperature range', the researchers said. They suggest fertility clinics could use their results to schedule more patients for treatment during the spring and summer – which they say would help boost success rates. 'Our findings suggest that season and temperature play a significant role in influencing the success rates of clinical pregnancies, and suggest that summer treatment may optimise IVF outcomes,' the team wrote in the International Journal of Biometeorology. The study was conducted on patients attending a fertility clinic at the Reproductive Hospital of Guangxi in China between June 2021 and October 2023. All were having IVF for the first time, and using fresh – rather than frozen – embryos. Those having treatment in the spring were 75 per cent more likely to get pregnant, and those in the summer were 53 per cent more likely to be successful. However, among those women having IVF using a process known as the 'long protocol' – which is standard in the UK and involves using drugs to suppress natural hormone production before stimulating the ovaries to produce more eggs – the pregnancy rate was twice as high during the summer months. Similar findings have also been reported in other studies. The researchers, from the hospital, said it was not clear why there appeared to be such a marked difference but suggested vitamin D levels could be a factor. The vitamin is naturally produced in the body in response to sunlight and the NHS recommends everyone in the UK takes a vitamin D supplement during the winter months. A deficiency of vitamin D is linked to a range of chronic conditions such as osteoporosis, multiple sclerosis and heart disease. The researchers said that while the impacts of season and temperature on pregnancy were 'not fully understood', more research was needed to clarify the role of vitamin D on pregnancy outcomes.
BBC News
a day ago
- BBC News
Why Donald Trump's tariffs take aim at Asia and your iPhones
When he began his trade war, President Donald Trump said his goal was to bring American jobs and manufacturing back to the US, reduce trade deficits and create a more level playing field for American companies competing globally. But after months of negotiations and many countries' refusal to meet America's demands, his strategy has taken a more punitive companies have been here before. Under Trump's first administration, when he imposed tariffs on Chinese exports, they scrambled to limit their exposure to Beijing, with many shifting production to Vietnam, Thailand and India to avoid higher levies. But his battery of new tariffs does not spare any of these economies. Stocks saw a sell-off, with benchmark indexes in Taiwan and South Korea in the red on Friday. Both countries are central to Asia's sprawling electronics production. The details are still hazy, but US firms from Apple to Nvidia will likely be paying more for their supply chains - they source critical components from several Asian countries and assemble devices in the they are on the hook - for iPhones, chips, batteries, and scores of other tiny components that power modern lives. It's not good news for Asian economies that have grown and become richer because of exports and foreign investment - from Japanese cars to South Korean electronics to Taiwanese chips. Soaring demand for all these goods fuelled trade surpluses with Washington over the years - and has driven President Trump's charge that Asian manufacturing has been taking American jobs away. In May, Trump told Apple CEO Tim Cook: "We put up with all the plants you built in China for years... we are not interested in you building in India, India can take care of themselves." Apple earns roughly half its revenue by selling iPhones that are manufactured in China, Vietnam and India. The tech giant reported bumper earnings for the three months to June, hours before Trump's tariff announcement on Thursday night, but now the future looks more executive Tim Cook told analysts on a conference call that tariffs had already cost Apple $800m (£600m) in the previous quarter, and may add $1.1bn in costs to the next quarter. Tech companies typically plan years ahead, but Trump's unpredictable tariff policy has paralysed businesses. Amazon's online marketplace, for instance, is just as dependent on China for what it sells in the US. But it's not yet clear what rates Chinese imports into the US could face because Beijing has yet to strike a deal with Washington - it has until 12 August to do so. Before they agreed to de-escalate, the two sides imposed tit-for-tat tariffs that reached a staggering 145% on some goods. But it's no longer just about China. On Thursday, Mr Cook said that most iPhones sold in the US now come from India. But Trump has just levelled a 25% tariff on Indian imports, after Delhi was unable to clinch a deal in time. Other firms chose to re-route their goods bound for the US through Vietnam and Thailand after the tariffs in Trump's first term. It became so common that it was called the "China+1" strategy. But this time, these trans-shipped goods are also being targeted. In fact, trans-shipping has been a big part of the US negotiations with Asian countries. Vietnamese imports face a 20% US levy but trans-shipped goods face 40%, according to Trump. It's harder still for advanced manufacturing like semiconductors - more than half of the world's chips, and most of its advanced ones, come from Taiwan. It is now subject to a 20% tariff. Chips are the backbone of Taiwan's economy, but also central to US efforts to gain a technological lead over China. So it is another US company, Nvidia, that will pay steep levies to put advanced chips by Taiwan's TSMC inside its AI products. But perhaps the biggest casualty of Trump's tariffs could well be Asia's e-commerce giants - as well as the American companies that rely on Chinese sellers and marketplaces. In a surprise move this week, Trump ditched the "de minimis" rule which exempted parcels under $800 from customs duties. He first did this in May, targeting such parcels from China and Hong Kong - and this was a blow for retailers like Shein and Temu, whose huge success has come from online sales in the West. Now American sites like eBay and Etsy have also lost that exemption - and the price of second-hand, vintage and handmade items for US customers will go up. President Trump says he is batting for Americans with these tariffs, but in a deeply globalised world, US firms and customers could also become casualties. There is still so much uncertainty that it is hard to see who the winners really are.
The Guardian
a day ago
- The Guardian
Why the US is burning $10m worth of birth control
There are few better metaphors for the receding status of American women than one offered up by the Trump administration at a medical waste disposal facility outside Paris this week: rather than distribute nearly $10m worth of birth control, which had been purchased by USAID and was destined to be given to women in low-income countries, primarily in Africa, the Americans decided to burn it. The incinerated contraceptives included 900,000 birth control implants, 2m doses of injectable long-acting birth control, 2m packs of contraceptive pills and 50,000 IUDs. The medicine is just the latest in the far-reaching fallout from cuts made by the so-called 'department of government efficiency,' or Doge, a project in which Elon Musk and a group of his very young, overwhelmingly male acolytes unilaterally slashed congressionally appropriated funding to government programs they did not like. The cuts have been devastating for non-profits that work to improve women's health and safety worldwide. Sarah Shaw, an associate director at the global family planning group MSI Reproductive Choices, says that the cuts will put women at risk as they strain their health with unplanned pregnancies and seek out illegal abortions; other women who are denied access to birth control will lose out on the opportunities for education, professional development or remunerative work that can help them escape abuse, rise out of poverty, pursue their talents and ambitions and better provide for the children they already have. When MSI attempted to buy the contraceptives, the administration would only accept full price, which the organization couldn't afford, she said. Several non-profits, including MSI, had offered to pay to ship and repackage the supplies, according to another representative. But the Trump administration refused, partially due to federal rules the prohibit the US from providing such goods to groups that perform, provide referrals for or offer education about abortions. In addition to the cost of purchasing the contraceptives, American taxpayers will now be on the hook for about $167,000 for the cost of burning them. It's just the latest in a series of signs that the Trump administration is turning against the provision of birth control, particularly the safe, effective and woman-controlled hormonal methods that have been a cornerstone of healthcare policy for decades and which were a precondition of women's advancement in work and education over the past 60 years. In April, the Trump administration abruptly announced that it was suspending a large swath of the domestic service grants distributed under Title X, the program meant to help low-income Americans access birth control, STD treatment and other sexual and reproductive healthcare. Of the 86 Title X grants awarded for fiscal year 2024, nearly 25% were 'temporarily withheld', mostly based on highly suspect allegations that the grant-receiving institutions – including 13 Planned Parenthood affiliates – had failed to comply with Trump executive orders banning things like DEI programs. Eight states now receive zero Title X dollars: California, Hawaii, Maine, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, Tennessee and Utah. Alaska, Minnesota and Pennsylvania have also lost most of their contraception funding. The domestic cuts – along with the exclusion of Planned Parenthood clinics from Medicaid reimbursements – mean that American women, too, are now facing dramatically greater obstacles to accessing birth control. Clinics that relied on Title X funding are now set to close: 11 Planned Parenthood clinics already have, including in Democratically controlled states like California. Planned Parenthood says that cumulatively, the cuts could lead the organization to close about 200 of its 600 clinics nationwide – a devastating cut to abortion providers in particular that will make a wide range of reproductive services inaccessible to women regardless of where they live. But the Trump administration is not merely forcing these programs for women's health and dignity go up in flames. They are redirecting them to better suit their preferred cultural outcome: one in which women's lives, ambitions and talents are all subordinated to the task of childbearing. The New York Times reported last month that the White House is redirecting Title X funds that once went to birth control to instead fund an 'infertility training center' and programs in something called 'restorative reproductive medicine'. If Title X's original aim was to help American women control their fertility so as to build healthier families and to enable them to pursue other aims – like learning or work – in the new administration's version, the program exists mainly to encourage women to have more children. But the switch should not be seen as a genuine investment in infertility, an often devastating condition with which many Americans struggle. Because the new Title X priorities do not, by and large, direct more money to IVF. Trump promised, on the campaign trail, to make IVF free. But the procedure, which has opponents on the Christian right, is not included in the administration's new priority of 'restorative' reproductive medicine, a practice that avoids controversial fertility treatments; instead, doctors seek the 'root cause' of a woman's infertility, which may involve telling them they can conceive with proper diet and exercise. In government, money allocation is a statement of values. With its dramatic cuts to contraceptive funding at home and abroad, the Trump administration is making its values clear. It does not value women's health; it does not value their dignity, their control over their own lives, their aspirations, their earning potential, their desire to be freed from ignorance, or poverty, or the abuse they suffer under the hands of husbands and fathers. It does not value their ability to control their own bodies, and by extension, it does not value their ability to enter the public sphere. It does not value their dreams, their gifts, their hard work or invention or aspiration to anything other than making babies. American women, like women everywhere, depend on birth control to live lives of freedom and to pursue their dreams. But because of the Trump administration, those dreams are going up in smoke. Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist
