Vietnam is considered one of countries with the fastest pace of population ageing in the region, according to scientists. And, in fact, the Vietnamese population has officially entered an ageing period since 2011. In a bid to assess the impacts of this process, the Development Strategy Institute under the Ministry of Planning and Investment, in cooperation with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), held a conference announcing the research report “Impacts of population age changes on Vietnam’s economic growth and policy recommendations” in Hanoi.
Specifically, according to the Vietnam population forecast report for the 2009-2049 period released by the General Statistics Office (GSO) under the Ministry of Planning and Investment, Vietnam has entered a period of “golden population structure” since 2007 and expected to last until the end of 2041. This is a big opportunity for Vietnam to develop its rapid-growing and sustainable economy. These conditions have become increasingly important to a country in the process of strong macroeconomic restructuring. And, abundant young human resources to serve growth demands have become more necessary than ever. It is extremely important to study the changing of population age structure and its impacts on economic growth to provide suitable recommendations, solutions and policies to capture opportunities and minimise challenges from those changes.
In the framework of the Component “Building the capacity of Development Strategy Institute in population research and serve the supervision and assessment of socioeconomic development strategy and planning” carried out by the Development Strategy Institute (part of Project VNM8P01 on ‘Support for implementation of the Vietnam Statistical Development Strategy in the period 2011-2020 and utilization of population information in development planning and programming’ funded by UNFPA, the Development Strategy Institute led and coordinated with relevant agencies, organisations and individuals to make the report “Impacts of the changing process of population age structure on Vietnam’s economic growth and policy recommendations.” The report used the National Transfer Accounts (NTA) methodology to analyse population roles by each age or age group to the economy, using their income and spending to determine demographic window or population bonus periods. The study also employed a number of economic analysis models to assess the impacts of the changing population age structure on economic growth and labour structure changing of economic sectors and the entire economy, while proposing some policies to utilise and turn “golden demographic opportunity” into the “population bonus” to serve Vietnam’s economic growth and development until 2049.
The report was based on groups of issues, such as impact of the changing process of population age structure to Vietnam’s economic growth and policy recommendations; impact of social labour productivity growth to economic growth and economic restructuring in Vietnam until 2035; and human resources development orientations and solutions of Vietnam until 2035. The purpose of the report was to provide valuable input for building the five-year socioeconomic development plan from 2016 to 2020 and Vietnam Report 2035, implemented by the Ministry of Planning and Investment.
Studies showed that productivity growth is an extremely important factor when Vietnam's population is ageing. Productivity improvement together with consistent policies for older workers to continue their occupation will help reduce the gap of national human resources.
Research indicated that medical institution system also needs to change to serve an ageing population. The younger the population is, the higher the labour productivity of the industry and the entire economy. For that reason, young labour groups with better professional skills and qualifications will provide a golden opportunity for growth even when international integration and competition is getting deeper, broader and more intense. Labour mobility plays an important role in changing sector labour productivity in particular and economic labour productivity in general. It is important to boost ripple effects of highly productive sectors like labour-intensive agriculture, forestry and fisheries. Mechanisms and institutions are very important factors to realise policies and turn the so-called “golden population structure” into “population bonus.”
In addition, among human resources development measures for the 2015-2035 period, the report placed emphasis on important planning to bring the development of Vietnamese human resources to the highest level. Accordingly, focus should be placed on such tasks as informing and forecasting sector-specific personnel supply - demand; developing socioeconomic development vision to 2035; actively researching global manpower demand, particularly in sectors in need of high level skilled workers; and building and perfecting labour policies from recruitment, employment, payroll and promotion; planning labour education and training networks to improve the training quality of educational and training institutions in Vietnam.
Anh Phuong
Vietnamese
