Baby boom: Vietnam lifts two-child limit

AFTER Vietnam removed its two-child limit, pharmacy worker Nguyen Thi Nguyet Nga says she still has no plans to have more kids, since she barely has time to see her daughters or the money to provide them a good life.

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The country’s communist government this week lifted a long-standing ban on families having more than two children, as it battles to reverse a declining birth rate and ease the burden of an ageing population.

But rising living costs and changing societal values mean the adjusted law may not bring the baby boom the government hopes for.

First introduced in 1988, the law has been loosely enforced in recent years, and despite its abolishment, 31-year-old Nga said she worries about the costs of having a third child.

It would mean seeing her two girls - aged seven and 12 even less than she does or skimping on their education, she said.

“My parents-in-law really want us to have a boy... however I will definitely not have more kids,” Nga said.

She earns around $300 a month working in a pharmacy in the main town of northern Tuyen Quang province, while her children live with their grandparents 40 kilometres away.