The Government is considering putting in place incentives for families who have all girls, one official said.

The government may provide incentives to families with all daughters

Duong Quoc Trong, Director of the Ministry of Health’s General Office for Population and Family Planning, said incentives should include tuition reductions, enrollment procedure simplification, accommodation provision at schools, vocational training, job placement and better access to business loans.

According to Trong, the ministry is seeking approval from the Prime Minister for a plan to tackle gender imbalance for the period of 2012-2020.

“The gender imbalance will result in too many males of marrying age. Vietnam is estimated to fall short of from 2.3-4.3 million women by 2050. This means that men may have to delay their marriage or will find it hard to have partners,” Long assessed.

He worried that the situation could lead to more trafficking and sex-related crimes.

Currently many Chinese and South Korean men look to foreign countries to find brides, including Vietnam.

A survey conducted by the General Statistics Office showed that Vietnam had 104-109 boys for every 100 girls in the period from 1999-2005. The rate has reached 109.8-111.9 boys for every 100 girls since 2006.

“Providing incentives to families with all daughters would be an effective measure to curb gender imbalance. We may also want to place a ban on gender selection before birth," he noted.

If the policy is approved and effectively implemented, the ministry expects to lower the gender imbalance to less than 113 boys on every 100 girls by 2015, and 115 boys on every 100 girls by 2020, he added.