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Vietnam POPULATION
Unavailable
Figure 11. Population Distribution, 1984
According to Hanoi, the population of Vietnam was almost 60
million at the end of 1985 (Western sources estimated about a
half million more than that in mid-1985). Vietnamese officials
estimated that the population would be at least 66 million by
1990 and 80 million by the year 2000, unless the growth rate of 2
percent per year used for these estimates was lowered to 1.7
percent by 1990. With declining mortality rates achieved through
improved health conditions, the population increased by 1.2
million or more per year between 1981 and 1986 (1.5 million in
1985 alone), worsening the country's chronic food shortage. In
the 1980s, Vietnam needed to produce an additional 400,000 tons
of food each year just to keep pace with its rapidly increasing
population.
Census results of October 1979 showed the total population of
reunified Vietnam to be 52.7 million of which 52 percent lived in
the North and 48 percent in the South. About 19 percent of the
population was classified as urban and 81 percent as rural.
Females outnumbered males by 3 percent, and the average life
expectancy at birth was 66 for females and 63 for males. With 52
percent of the total under 20 years of age, the population was
young. Ethnically, 87 percent were Vietnamese-speaking lowlanders
known as Viet or Kinh, and the remainder were Hoa or members of
highland minority groups
(see Ethnic Groups and Languages
, this
ch.). In December 1986, Hanoi estimated that more than 1 million
Vietnamese lived overseas, 50 percent of them in the United
States. A Vietnamese source in Paris claimed that about half of
Ho Chi Minh City's population lived completely or partially on
family aid packages sent by Vietnamese emigres abroad.
Beginning in the early 1960s, the socioeconomic implications
of rapid population growth became an increasing concern of the
government in Hanoi. A family planning drive, instituted in 1963,
was claimed by the government to have accounted for a decline in
the annual growth rate in the North from 3.4 percent in 1960 to
2.7 percent in 1975. In the South, however, family planning was
actively encouraged only after 1976, and the results were mixed,
consistently falling short of announced goals. In 1981 Hanoi set
a national goal of 1.7 percent growth rate to be achieved by the
end of 1985: a growth rate of 1.3 to 1.5 percent was established
for the North, 1.5 to 1.7 percent for the South, and 1.7 to 2.0
percent for the sparsely settled highland provinces. In 1987, the
growth rate, according to Vietnamese sources, was about 2.0
percent
(see
table 2, Appendix A).
Family planning was described as voluntary and dependent upon
persuasion. The program's guidelines called for two children per
couple, births spaced five years apart, and a minimum age of
twenty-two for first-time mothers--a major challenge in a society
where the customary age for women to marry, especially in the
rural areas, was nineteen or twenty. Campaign workers were
instructed to refrain tactfully from mentioning abortion and to
focus instead on pregnancy prevention when dealing with people of
strong religious conviction. Enlisting the support of Catholic
priests for the campaign was strongly encouraged. In 1987 it was
evident that the government was serious about family planning; a
new law on marriage and the family adopted in December 1986 made
family planning obligatory, and punitive measures, such as pay
cuts and denial of bonuses and promotions, were introduced for
non-compliance
(see The Family since 1954
, this ch.).
A substantial portion of the population had mixed feelings
about birth control and sex education, and the number of women
marrying before age twenty remained high. Typically, a woman of
child-bearing age had four or more children. The 1986 family law
that raised the legal marriage age for women to twenty-two met
with strenuous opposition. Critics argued that raising the legal
age offered no solution to the widespread practice among
Vietnamese youth of "falling in love early, having sexual
relations early, and getting married early." Some critics even
advanced the view that the population should be increased to
further economic development; others insisted that those who
could grow enough food for themselves need not practice birth
control. A significant proportion of the population retained
traditional attitudes which favored large families with many sons
as a means of insuring the survival of a family's lineage and
providing for its security. Although problems associated with
urban living, such as inadequate housing and unemployment,
created a need for change in traditional family-size standards,
old ways nevertheless persisted. They were perpetuated in
proverbs like "If Heaven procreates elephants, it will provide
enough grass to feed them" or "To have one son is to have; to
have ten daughters is not to have."
Government authorities were concerned over the lack of
coordination among agencies involved in family planning and the
lack of necessary clinics and funding to provide convenient,
safe, and efficient family planning services in rural areas. Even
more disturbing was the knowledge that many local party
committees and government agencies were only going through the
motions of supporting the family planning drive. To remedy the
situation, the government in 1984 created the National Committee
on Family Planning (also known as the National Commission on
Demography and Family Planning, or the National Population and
Parenthood Commission). The commission was directed to increase
the rate of contraceptive use among married couples from about 23
percent in 1983 to 70 percent by 1990 and to limit the population
to between 75 and 80 million by the year 2000. The latter goal
was to be based on an annual growth rate of 1.7 percent or less,
a figure that in 1987 seemed unrealistically low. According to a
National Committee on Family Planning report released in February
1987, the population grew by 2.2 percent in 1986 (Western
analysts estimate the increase to have been between 2.5 and 2.8
percent). In light of the 1986 growth rate, the committee's
target for 1987 was revised at the beginning of the year to 1.9
percent. Even if such a goal were met, Vietnam's population at
the end of 1987 would stand in excess of 63 million inhabitants.
The average population density in 1985 was 179 persons per
square kilometer. Population density varied widely, however, and
was generally lower in the southern provinces than in the
northern ones; in both North and South it was also lower in the
highlands and mountainous regions than in the lowlands. The most
densely settled region was the Red River Delta, accounting for
roughly 75 percent of the population of the North. Also heavily
settled was the Mekong River Delta, with nearly half of the
southern population.
After 1976, population redistribution became a pressing issue
because of food shortages and unemployment in the urban areas. A
plan unveiled at the Fourth National Party Congress in December
1976 called for the relocation of 44 million people by 1980 and
an additional 10 million by the mid-1990s. The plan also called
for opening up 1 million hectares of virgin land to cultivation
and introduced a measure designed to divert some armed forces
personnel to the building of
new economic zones (see Glossary).
The relocation was to involve an interregional transfer of
northerners to the South as well as an intraregional movement of
lowlanders to upland areas in both the North and the South.
Between 1976 and 1980, most of the 4 million people who were
relocated to rural areas and the new economic zones were from Ho
Chi Minh City and other southern cities. In the 1981-85 period, a
total of about 0.6 million workers and 1.3 million dependents
were relocated, causing the country's urban population to decline
from 19.3 percent of the total in 1979 to 18 percent in 1985. The
country's long-range goal, established in 1976, called for the
population to be distributed more or less evenly throughout
Vietnam's 443 districts with an average for each district of
200,000 persons living on 20,000 hectares
(see
fig. 11).
Data as of December 1987
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