Deputy Director of the municipal Population and Family Planning Department Pham Chanh Trung said that over 80 percent of pregnant women and babies are screened annually. It helps to early treat digestive disorders or hereditary diseases; therefore it is needed to reduce the number of babies with disabilities and mental health problems for improving city population quality.
Additionally, good healthcare task for senior citizens has contributed to old people’s life standard. Overall life expectancy has improved slightly. Specifically, as of 2019, life expectancy in HCMC reached 76.6 years while it was 73.6 years in the country. However, senior citizens face barriers that limit access to needed health care services.
According to statistics from the General Office for Population and Family Planning under the Ministry of Health, Ho Chi Minh City’s fertility rate presently is 1.39 children. Worse, the birthrate is predicted to continue declining in the future, badly affecting the city’s population structure.
It is forecasted that the population growth rate in Vietnam will be less than 1 percent per year in the next ten years. Currently, the country is maintaining the replacement-level fertility ( of 2.09 children). Nevertheless, there is a gap in birthrate between regions. The South-eastern region and the Mekong Delta are two places with the country’s lowest birthrate.
In related news, the General Statistics Office organized a conference yesterday in Hanoi to announce the results of the in-depth study of the 2019 population and housing census. The results were released on December 19, 2019, Ms. Nguyen Thi Huong, Director General of the General Statistics Office said.
Specifically, there have been researches on fertility, sex imbalances at birth, migration and urbanization, aging population, population forecasts in Vietnam for the period of 2019-2069.
Forecasts show that if the sex ratio at birth remains stable as at present, males aged from 15 to 49 will be redundant compared to females of the same age group in 2034 (around 1.5 million people and 2.5 million people in 2059).
Furthermore, according to the medium level, Vietnam will end the period of golden population structure by 2039. It is estimated that the period of aging population will last for 28 years from 2016-2054, followed by the rate of people who age 80 years or above in the period of 2055-2069.
