Vietnam offers cash for second children as fertility rate falls

Vietnam is rolling out cash and leave incentives for families who have a second child, Fortune reported, in a bid to lift a birthrate that has fallen below replacement level. The program is tightly targeted: women qualify only if they are under 35 and already have one living biological child when they give birth.

Under Vietnam’s new Population Law, women who have a second child before age 35 will receive at least VND 2 million, or about $75.86, Fortune reported. The government has pledged VND 1.8 trillion, about $68 million, each year for the cash-bonus program, according to Fortune.

The incentive also extends to men whose wives deliver a second child, as well as families from ethnic minority groups and families living in areas where fertility is below replacement level, Fortune reported. The report said it was not clear whether the same age rule applies to men, or whether families receive similar benefits for a third or fourth child.

Fortune said Vietnam’s government did not respond to its request for comment.

Leave benefits also expand

The new policy includes changes to parental leave, according to Fortune. Mothers are now entitled to seven months of maternity leave, up from six, for a second child, while paternity leave has doubled to 10 working days.

The changes come as Vietnam, a country of about 102 million people, tries to address a sustained decline in births, Fortune reported. Vietnam’s fertility rate fell to 1.91 children per woman in 2024, a record low and below replacement level, according to figures cited by Fortune from Macrotrends.

Vietnam also ended its two-child policy after the birthrate decline, The Guardian reported in June 2025. Fortune linked the latest incentives to that broader shift in policy, as the government moves from limiting births toward encouraging more of them.

Costs weigh on family decisions

Fortune also cited research showing why governments may struggle to persuade families to have more children with modest payments. An analysis of Census Bureau Current Population Survey data found that full-time working mothers with children under 18 earn about 31% less than comparable male workers, according to Fortune.

That gap amounted to about $1,400 a month, $17,000 a year and roughly $500,000 over a 30-year career, Fortune reported, describing the estimate as conservative. The report connected those costs to a broader pattern of women delaying childbirth and having fewer children.

Other countries and employers have tried their own incentives, Fortune reported. In France, 29-year-old women have received letters urging them not to wait too long to start a family, according to a report cited by Fortune from The Independent.

In South Korea, construction company Booyoung Group has offered employees 100 million won, or about $66,000, each time they have a baby, Fortune reported. The company has also applied the benefit retroactively to workers who had children before the policy began, according to Fortune.

Fortune also noted that Elon Musk has donated millions of dollars to fertility research and has warned publicly about population decline. The report said Musk, who has 14 children, has also opposed some workplace policies that can help parents balance jobs and childcare, including working from home.

This story draws on original reporting from Fortune.