Why Vietnam is dropping its two-child policy

Relaxation of family limit to boost birth rates – but 'baby boom' not certain

Illustrative collage of many storks carrying babies
(Image credit: Illustration by Julia Wytrazek / Getty Images)

Vietnam has scrapped its 37-year-old policy of limiting families to two children, as the country faces up to its ageing population and economic worries.

The southeast Asian nation was "one of the last holdouts among countries with population-control policies", said the The Washington Post, but now it's joining the global trend for population policies aimed at boosting births.

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  Chas Newkey-Burden has been part of The Week Digital team for more than a decade and a journalist for 25 years, starting out on the irreverent football weekly 90 Minutes, before moving to lifestyle magazines Loaded and Attitude. He was a columnist for The Big Issue and landed a world exclusive with David Beckham that became the weekly magazine’s bestselling issue. He now writes regularly for The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, Metro, FourFourTwo and the i new site. He is also the author of a number of non-fiction books.