An important milestone in population work is the Population Law passed by the 15th National Assembly, including 8 chapters and 30 articles, effective from July 1, 2026.
Vietnam's population reached 102.3 million people (in 2025), continuing to increase but the natural growth rate tends to slow down. Along with clear fluctuations in birth rates, population aging, age structure and population distribution, Vietnam's population picture is entering an important transitional period.
In the context of the entire Party and people moving towards the 14th Party Congress, looking back at the achievements of population work in the past time is an important basis to determine directions and tasks for the new development phase.
Population size is controlled, population quality is gradually improving
2025 is considered one of the pivotal years of the population sector, both closing the cycle of implementing tasks according to the Vietnam Population Strategy and opening the stage of implementing a new policy system with the birth of the Population Law.
The population picture in 2025 is therefore "double": both reflecting the operating efficiency of previous years and clearly showing the issues raised that need to be addressed in the coming time.
According to the Statistics Office (Ministry of Finance), Vietnam's average population in 2025 reached 102.3 million people, an increase of about 1 million people compared to 2024. The overall gender structure of the population is basically stable, with 51 million men (49.9%) and 51.3 million women (50.1%). The population in urban areas reached 39.5 million people, accounting for 38.6%; rural areas were 62.9 million people, accounting for 61.4%.
Total fertility rate (TFR) in 2025 reached 1.93 children/woman, a slight increase compared to 2024 but still in a long-term downward trend from 2020 to now. The proportion of the young population group (0-14 years old) continued to decrease from 23.5% to 22.8%, clearly reflecting the trend of birth rate decrease and slowing population reproduction rate.
Along with that, population health indicators remained at a positive level, the infant mortality rate slightly decreased to 11.2%; average life expectancy reached 74.7 years old, equivalent to 2024.
In 2025, the rate of elderly people receiving periodic health check-ups reached 70%, an increase of 6.6% compared to 2024; nearly 46,000 volunteers participated in elderly care in the community; more than 12,300 elderly clubs maintain regular activities. These results show that the quality of health care, living conditions and people's awareness continue to improve.
The reproductive health care network continues to be maintained and expanded. Nearly 500,000 pregnant women are screened for prenatal screening (rate of 66.59%), more than 422,000 newborns are screened for congenital screening (rate of 58%).
The system of 1,398 heel blood sample collection facilities and 160 testing facilities operates stably, helping to detect many congenital diseases early and reduce the medical burden later.
One of the outstanding achievements of population work in the past time is that Vietnam continues to maintain the "golden population" structure.
The working-age population group (15-59 years old) accounts for about 62.7% of the total population in 2025. This is an important resource for economic growth, labor structure shift, industrial and service development, and the knowledge economy.
However, along with the golden population structure is the rapid aging process. The proportion of the population aged 60 and over increased from 14% in 2024 to 14.5% in 2025.
This shows that Vietnam is moving rapidly towards the aging population phase, posing an urgent requirement for preparing a social security system, long-term health care and policy adaptation in the coming time.
The widespread deployment of communication and population education has contributed to changing social behavior and awareness. The model of families with few children, focusing on quality of life, reproductive health care, enhancing the role of women and gender equality are increasingly affirmed.
In 2025, the Department of Population deployed a population data warehouse on a scale of 3,321 communes/wards, testing the MIS system on a web platform in Quang Ninh province and Hai Phong city.
Data comparison and appraisal are strengthened to standardize and create a premise for connecting population data according to the requirements of the Population Law. Digital transformation in the population is an important step to improve demographic analysis and forecasting capacity. This is considered a particularly important factor in the long-term policy development phase.
These changes not only help control population size but also create a foundation for the goal of improving population quality, a core factor of sustainable development in the new period.
Building policies to meet the development requirements of the country
An important milestone in population work is the Population Law passed by the 15th National Assembly on December 10, 2025, including 8 chapters, 30 articles, effective from July 1, 2026.
This is the first comprehensive population law, showing a strong shift from "family planning" thinking to "population and development.
Along with that, many important documents were issued such as the Ordinance amending the Population Ordinance, the Politburo's Conclusion on continuing to implement Resolution 21-NQ/TW, circulars guiding population management decentralization and the national target program on health care, population and development for the period 2026-2035.
The Population Law fully covers the contents of population size, structure, distribution, and quality; adaptation to aging; reducing gender imbalance at birth; building a population data system; defining the rights and obligations of individuals and the responsibilities of agencies and organizations in population work.
The promulgation of the Law creates an important legal basis for effectively managing population fluctuations in the new development phase of the country.
Entering the next phase, population work faces many major challenges: long-term decrease in birth rates, rapidly increasing population aging, gender imbalance at birth not being sustainably controlled, and the golden population structure gradually shrinking. These issues have a direct impact on growth, human resources and social security, requiring strong innovation in thinking and policies.
The consistent direction of population work in the coming time is to continue to thoroughly grasp the spirit of the Population Law: considering population as a strategic component of development.
Population policy needs to be closely integrated with planning, socio-economic development, urbanization, education, health, labor market and digital transformation. This comprehensive approach helps Vietnam proactively adapt to rapid and complex demographic changes in the next decade.
In the context of a trend of prolonged declining birth rates, the Population Law has legalized many support policies to maintain reasonable birth rates. Specifically, female workers who have a second child are entitled to 7 months of maternity leave; male workers are entitled to 10 days of leave when their wives give birth; financial support for women who have two children before the age of 35, ethnic minority women are very few, women in localities have low birth rates; priority is given to accessing social housing for families with two or more children.
The synchronous implementation of these policies aims to reduce cost pressure, create a favorable environment for families to feel secure in having enough children, thereby ensuring the balance of human resources in the long term.
Rapid population aging requires early and systematic preparation. The Population Law sets out requirements to encourage people to prepare for health, finance, and psychology before old age; expand the coverage of social insurance and health insurance;
Develop an elderly care system in the community; build a living environment, urban areas and services that are friendly to the elderly. The goal is to aim for "active aging", ensuring that the elderly live healthy, useful lives, and reduce the burden on families and society.
The sex ratio at birth in 2025 at 110 boys/100 girls is still a major challenge. The Population Law strictly prohibits choosing the gender of the fetus in any form; prohibits notifying and disclosing the gender of the fetus, except in cases serving diagnosis and medical treatment; encourages the inclusion of content that does not value men more than women in village regulations and community conventions.
Reducing gender imbalance at birth requires the synchronous involvement of the entire political system and society, in order to ensure social stability in the medium and long term.
In the new development phase, improving population quality is considered a continuous task. Population work needs to be linked to maternal and child health care; improving the physical strength, stature, and intellectual capacity of Vietnamese people; expanding reproductive health care services for adolescents and young people; applying technology in population management and connecting population data with health, education, and social security.
Improved population quality will directly contribute to improving labor productivity, national competitiveness and growth quality.
In the context of increasingly rapid demographic transformation, with strong changes in institutions, organizational structure, methods of implementation and policy orientation, the population sector enters a new phase with an increasingly important role in ensuring human resources, improving the quality of life and consolidating the social security foundation for the country.
