Big challenges when birth rate decreases, population ages rapidly

Along with the general trend of the world , the number and proportion of elderly people in Vietnam (those aged 60 and over) are constantly increasing. Vietnam (VN) officially entered the population aging stage since 2011 when the number of elderly people accounted for 10% of the population.

Thách thức lớn khi mức sinh giảm, già hóa dân số nhanh - Ảnh 1. — Vietnam needs solutions to improve population quality and increase human resources in geriatrics.

Vietnam is one of the countries with the fastest population aging rate in the world. The transition time from the population aging stage to the old population is 27 years, shorter than many other countries (France 115 years, Sweden 85 years, America 69 years).

With increasing life expectancy and a declining birth rate, the Ministry of Health predicts that Vietnam will soon become an aging population country by 2038 (when people over 60 years old account for 20% of the population). By 2032, the number of elderly people is expected to be higher than the number of children. By 2036, more than 3 people of working age will support 1 elderly person and by 2049, there will be only more than 2 people.

Population aging is one of the achievements in socio -economic development and health care. However, rapid population aging poses great challenges to the social security system and the health care system for the elderly.

According to the results of the mid-term population and housing census as of April 1, 2024, the country has about 14.2 million elderly people, accounting for over 14% of the population. Of these, about 2.6 million are over 80 years old (accounting for 15.9% of the total elderly); 9.05 million elderly are female (accounting for 57.8%). The average life expectancy is 74.7 years (2024), the elderly have an average of 2-3 underlying diseases, and a healthy life expectancy of only 65 years old.

The Ministry of Health estimates that with the need for 8,004 geriatricians for 1,334 public general hospitals nationwide, the state needs to spend 592 billion VND/2 years (estimated cost of geriatric specialist training is 37 million VND/year, geriatric specialist training time is 2 years).

In addition, if the plan to support 50% of tuition fees for those trained as doctors, nurses, caregivers, and rehabilitation technicians is implemented, about 100 people can be trained each year, with a cost of 18 million VND/person/year, the budget needs to spend 1.8 billion VND/year. The budget also needs to spend about 450 billion VND to develop a network of health care workers for the elderly in the community at health stations and communes and wards.

The leader of the Department of Population (Ministry of Health) said that the draft Population Law has proposed a number of community care models, semi-boarding elderly care models, instead of just nursing homes, with land and tax incentives for investors.