Vietnam reaches 100 million people: 3 opportunities for rapid development!

NDO - Vietnam's population reaching 100 million is an important and impressive milestone in the country's development process. Vietnam has entered the "Club of 15 most populous countries in the world", becoming a population powerhouse in both size and rank.

Baby care.

With a population of 100 million, in addition to challenges such as: Rapid population aging; serious gender imbalance at birth; low population quality (ranked 115th out of 193 countries in 2021)... Vietnam's population also has 3 outstanding characteristics that provide opportunities to promote rapid and sustainable development of the country.

Firstly, with a large population size and a rapidly growing middle-income level, Vietnam becomes a notable market .

Reaching 100 million people, when the country has been in renovation for nearly 40 years, Vietnam has an average income per capita and is increasing rapidly. According to the World Bank, this indicator of Vietnam after 30 years has increased more than 33 times (in 1991, it was only 110 USD/person, in 2021 it was 3,590 USD), purchasing power has also increased accordingly.

With a large population and rapidly increasing purchasing power, Vietnam has become a fairly large market, worthy of attention. Today, each year, providing each Vietnamese person with just 10 USD of a product or service can bring in billions of USD.

Therefore, in addition to expanding the market to the world, Vietnam has both necessary and sufficient conditions to develop the domestic market, increasing its ability to cope with the erratic fluctuations of the world market.

Second, Vietnam reached 100 million people in the period of " Golden population structure ", abundant labor.

A population is said to have a "golden population structure" when the proportion of people aged 15 to 64 (those who are able to work) accounts for 66% or more of the total population.

This is a very rare structure (precious and rare as gold), because many countries with high birth rates, many children or countries with aging populations, many elderly people will not have this structure. In 1979, the proportion of the population from 15 to 64 years old in our country was only 52.7%, this year this proportion is 67.5%.

The theme of World Population Day 11 July 2023 is: Harnessing the power of gender equality: Raising the voices of women and girls to unleash the limitless potential of our world.

Therefore, with the same 100 million population, in 1979, Vietnam only had 52.7 million people who could work, but this year there were 67.5 million, an increase of nearly 15 million people. This is a great surplus in labor brought about by the "golden population structure", creating opportunities for rapid economic growth. Japan, South Korea and many other countries had "miraculous" economies during the "golden population structure" period.

But the “golden population structure” only brings opportunities for economic growth and national development. To take advantage of this opportunity, people of working age must be healthy and able to work; those who are able to work must have jobs and those who have jobs must work with high productivity.

Thanks to 40 years of innovation, economic and medical development, people's health has improved. In 2021, the average life expectancy in Vietnam is 74, and in the world it is 73. Therefore, in general, the vast majority of people between the ages of 15 and 64 are able to work, even the elderly still account for a large proportion of the labor force (nearly 11% in rural areas, over 6% in urban areas).

On the other hand, thanks to innovation, the market economic institution is increasingly perfected, international integration is increasingly deep, the population is large, high density, the market is large and the labor is abundant, ... attracting investment from both the state and non-state sectors and foreign investment.

Foreign direct investment alone, in the past 10 years (2012-2021), had a total registered capital of nearly 294 billion USD, implementing more than 161 billion USD, contributing to expanding employment so that people with the ability to work are guaranteed fairly adequate employment.

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, the unemployment rate in 2019 was only 1.82%, and the unemployed only accounted for 1.5% of the working-age population with jobs. A large, secure workforce is the main factor driving Vietnam's rapid economic growth and increasing the size of the economy in recent times.

However, the labor force in the agricultural, forestry and fishery sector in our country is still high, about 30%, (developed countries are only about 3% or 4%). Besides, the rate of laborers with professional and technical training at the elementary level or higher is still low, about 26% in 2020, even the Mekong Delta region has only 7%.

This is one of the reasons why Vietnam's labor productivity is not high. In 2020, it was more than 12 times lower than Singapore, 1.3 times lower than the Philippines and 1.2 times lower than Indonesia. Therefore, improving labor productivity is the biggest challenge to help our country's economy grow faster and soon become a high-ranking economy in the world, commensurate with its population size.

Strengthen communication on population and family planning.

Third, Vietnam reached 100 million people when the birth rate was low and the "2-child family" model was popular.

Since 1961, the Government Council has issued Decision 216/CP on guided childbirth. After more than 60 years of persistently promoting family planning, the birth rate in Vietnam has decreased and is low. Since 2005, on average, each couple has only had 2 children nationwide. This low birth rate has been maintained until now.

Many countries, when reaching 100 million people, have very high population density but on average each woman still gives birth to 5 children, so there is a super population explosion, making development very difficult and unsustainable.

Surveys on living standards in our country all confirm the general trend that the smaller the family size, the larger the average income per capita. This is true for the whole country, each region, each province and all years. Thus, low birth rates contribute to poverty reduction and improving people's living standards.

On the other hand, when society is still influenced by the ideology of “valuing boys more than girls”, when there are many children and poverty, girls often drop out of school. On the contrary, when there are few children, in the period of renovation, when the economy and society are more developed, the family can ensure that 2 children go to school, creating great opportunities for girls and women to go to school.

Therefore, the current rate of female students is high, even at higher levels of education, the rate of female students is higher and higher than the rate of male students. In the 2022-2023 school year, the rate of female high school students is 53.4%, female university students is 53.8%. Higher education is a solid foundation for women to participate in economic and social activities and gender equality.

Vietnam has reached 100 million people when the family planning policy has been implemented for more than 60 years, the birth reduction target has been firmly achieved and most importantly, the achievements of innovation over the past 40 years have opened up unprecedented development opportunities for the country. These achievements have created a resonant force that has promoted our country to develop rapidly in recent times and will certainly develop even faster in the future.

nhandan.vn