India, June 5 -- First China, and now Vietnam have lifted policies capping the number of children allowed, underscoring the unintended demographic consequences of such interventions. This should serve as a warning to other countries against direct and indirect coercive measures to curb fertility. A rapid fall in birth rates, quite like the case with China before it scrapped its one-child policy, has now forced Vietnam to scrap its two-child limit for families - its total fertility rate (TFR) hit the replacement rate of 2.1 in 2021 and fell to 1.96 in 2023. With societies getting older and living longer, limits on children portend a future demographic - and thereby, economic - problem of not enough young, working hands and rising numbers o...