Two H’mong ethnic minority women in the northern mountainous province of Lao Cai’s Bac Ha district (Photo: VNA) Hanoi (VNA) - Social mobility in Vietnam is lagging behind itseconomic growth over the last decade, as the country’s poor still lack accessto learn new skills and gain better jobs.
A new report "Social Mobility and Equality of Opportunity in Vietnam:Trends and Impact factors” launched by Oxfam on March 29 highlighted theproblem and the threat it poses to the country’s sustainable growth.
The report consolidates data from the Vietnam Household Living Standards Survey2004 -14 and interviews with about 700 people over the last two years in threeprovinces of Lao Cai, Nghe An and Dak Nong in the north, central and CentralHighland regions, respectively.
Social mobility is defined as a change in the social status of an individual orhousehold. Social mobility can refer to a change an adult experiences ascompared with his/her parents – intergenerational social mobility – or a changeover a single person’s life cycle – intra-generational social mobility.
In the Oxfam report, social mobility is analysed in three areas, namelyoccupation, skills and income.
According to the report, in Vietnam, occupational mobility is limited, with 79percent of agriculture workers in 2004 continuing to work in agriculture in2008, and even rising to 83 percent during the 2010 – 14 period. Meanwhile,less than eight percent of agriculture workers moved into the industry orservice sectors during either period.
The country saw slow improvement in skill development. The survey showed thatduring each period, 2004-08 and 2010-14, only a fifth of manual workers joinedthe ranks of skilled workers in either blue-collar or white-collarfields.
The problem is especially acute for members of ethnic minority groups. During2004-08, just 2 percent of manual workers from ethnic groups moved from manualagricultural work to blue collar work while the figure for Kinh people was 15percent.
In the three provinces surveyed, making the shift from a farm job to anindustrial or service position was not necessarily a step forward.
Youth frequently migrated to work as unskilled or low-skilled workers ingarment and footwear or assembly factories for several months or years and thenthey returned to their hometowns due to harsh factory working conditions,obligations to their parents or the perceived instability of life at their newresidence.
The report also states that income mobility has slowed down. About 45 percentof households in the poorest group in 2004 moved to higher income quintilesafter four years, but this rate was reduced to 37 percent during 2010-14.
About 33 percent of the poorest households headed by people under age 30entered higher income groups in 2004-08, but only 16 percent did so during2010-14.
Income mobility is higher in urban areas than in rural areas and higher in theKinh and Hoa groups than in ethnic minority groups.
Girls are more likely than boys to make higher incomes than their parents.
The greater a child’s educational attainment, the more likely they are to surpasstheir parents’ income.
Hoang Xuan Thanh, who led this report, said that social mobility was a measureof equality of opportunity because it reflects how opportunities are convertedinto social and economic outcomes.
“In an equal society, everyone has an equal opportunity to achieve economic andsocial status. Wealth and social position are decided by characteristics,efforts and achievements of individuals, not by external factors such asregion, ethnicity, gender or parent’s position,” he said.
The Gini coefficient of Vietnam was 0.348 in 2014 against 0.326 in 1993,according to World Bank. Income inequality between the 20 percent richesthouseholds and the 20 percent poorest households increased from 7 times to over8.5 times during 2004- 2010 and was unchanged between 2012 and 2014.
Thanh said that with a Gini of 0.34, it was time for Vietnam to take strongeractions to reduce inequality. The Gini coefficient measures relative incomeinequality and is calculated based on income distribution among the totalpopulation. Gini=0 means absolute equality and Gini=1 means absoluteinequality.
Income inequality between the Kinh and Hoa ethnic groups and other ethnicminority groups also rose slightly from 2.1 times to 2.3 times during the 2004-2014period.
Thanh said that educational attainment, parents’ socioeconomic status and theability to pursue multiple types of employment were three core elements drivingsocial mobility in Vietnam.
Poor quality education, discrimination against ethnic minorities and a greatdisparity between the poor and the rich in terms of access to education aremajor barriers to social mobility.
Sociologist Do Thien Kinh said that economic inequality reflected socialmobility and social stratification. Economic inequality is inverselyproportional to social mobility.
In order to develop a stronger middle class, private businesses should be givenresources and opportunities to develop because they have the ability to createmore jobs and encourage people from lower class to thrive upward, Kinh said.
Economist Pham Chi Lan said that inter-generational occupational mobility islow because the economic structure in Vietnam has changed slowly in the lastfew decades, with a small proportion of labourers moving from the agriculturalsector to industry and service sectors. The agriculture sector still makes up ahigh proportion of Vietnam’s economic structure.
Moreover, when moving to industry or service sectors, a majority of labourerswork in fields which require unskilled or low-skilled labour such as mining,food processing, assembling and simple trade and hospitality services. The workgenerates little value-added, resulting in low productivity, which fails toimprove income and encourage labourers to improve their skills.
Country director of Oxfam in Vietnam Babeth Ngoc Han Lefur said that Vietnamcould achieve an increase in desirable social mobility if policy makers realisethe great importance of the role of education, quality vocational training, asupport mechanism for migrant workers and the need to reduce disparitiesbetween urban and rural areas and between Kinh and ethnic minority groups.
“Tackling inequality before it becomes too deep is urgent,” she said. – VNA
A new report "Social Mobility and Equality of Opportunity in Vietnam:Trends and Impact factors” launched by Oxfam on March 29 highlighted theproblem and the threat it poses to the country’s sustainable growth.
The report consolidates data from the Vietnam Household Living Standards Survey2004 -14 and interviews with about 700 people over the last two years in threeprovinces of Lao Cai, Nghe An and Dak Nong in the north, central and CentralHighland regions, respectively.
Social mobility is defined as a change in the social status of an individual orhousehold. Social mobility can refer to a change an adult experiences ascompared with his/her parents – intergenerational social mobility – or a changeover a single person’s life cycle – intra-generational social mobility.
In the Oxfam report, social mobility is analysed in three areas, namelyoccupation, skills and income.
According to the report, in Vietnam, occupational mobility is limited, with 79percent of agriculture workers in 2004 continuing to work in agriculture in2008, and even rising to 83 percent during the 2010 – 14 period. Meanwhile,less than eight percent of agriculture workers moved into the industry orservice sectors during either period.
The country saw slow improvement in skill development. The survey showed thatduring each period, 2004-08 and 2010-14, only a fifth of manual workers joinedthe ranks of skilled workers in either blue-collar or white-collarfields.
The problem is especially acute for members of ethnic minority groups. During2004-08, just 2 percent of manual workers from ethnic groups moved from manualagricultural work to blue collar work while the figure for Kinh people was 15percent.
In the three provinces surveyed, making the shift from a farm job to anindustrial or service position was not necessarily a step forward.
Youth frequently migrated to work as unskilled or low-skilled workers ingarment and footwear or assembly factories for several months or years and thenthey returned to their hometowns due to harsh factory working conditions,obligations to their parents or the perceived instability of life at their newresidence.
The report also states that income mobility has slowed down. About 45 percentof households in the poorest group in 2004 moved to higher income quintilesafter four years, but this rate was reduced to 37 percent during 2010-14.
About 33 percent of the poorest households headed by people under age 30entered higher income groups in 2004-08, but only 16 percent did so during2010-14.
Income mobility is higher in urban areas than in rural areas and higher in theKinh and Hoa groups than in ethnic minority groups.
Girls are more likely than boys to make higher incomes than their parents.
The greater a child’s educational attainment, the more likely they are to surpasstheir parents’ income.
Hoang Xuan Thanh, who led this report, said that social mobility was a measureof equality of opportunity because it reflects how opportunities are convertedinto social and economic outcomes.
“In an equal society, everyone has an equal opportunity to achieve economic andsocial status. Wealth and social position are decided by characteristics,efforts and achievements of individuals, not by external factors such asregion, ethnicity, gender or parent’s position,” he said.
The Gini coefficient of Vietnam was 0.348 in 2014 against 0.326 in 1993,according to World Bank. Income inequality between the 20 percent richesthouseholds and the 20 percent poorest households increased from 7 times to over8.5 times during 2004- 2010 and was unchanged between 2012 and 2014.
Thanh said that with a Gini of 0.34, it was time for Vietnam to take strongeractions to reduce inequality. The Gini coefficient measures relative incomeinequality and is calculated based on income distribution among the totalpopulation. Gini=0 means absolute equality and Gini=1 means absoluteinequality.
Income inequality between the Kinh and Hoa ethnic groups and other ethnicminority groups also rose slightly from 2.1 times to 2.3 times during the 2004-2014period.
Thanh said that educational attainment, parents’ socioeconomic status and theability to pursue multiple types of employment were three core elements drivingsocial mobility in Vietnam.
Poor quality education, discrimination against ethnic minorities and a greatdisparity between the poor and the rich in terms of access to education aremajor barriers to social mobility.
Sociologist Do Thien Kinh said that economic inequality reflected socialmobility and social stratification. Economic inequality is inverselyproportional to social mobility.
In order to develop a stronger middle class, private businesses should be givenresources and opportunities to develop because they have the ability to createmore jobs and encourage people from lower class to thrive upward, Kinh said.
Economist Pham Chi Lan said that inter-generational occupational mobility islow because the economic structure in Vietnam has changed slowly in the lastfew decades, with a small proportion of labourers moving from the agriculturalsector to industry and service sectors. The agriculture sector still makes up ahigh proportion of Vietnam’s economic structure.
Moreover, when moving to industry or service sectors, a majority of labourerswork in fields which require unskilled or low-skilled labour such as mining,food processing, assembling and simple trade and hospitality services. The workgenerates little value-added, resulting in low productivity, which fails toimprove income and encourage labourers to improve their skills.
Country director of Oxfam in Vietnam Babeth Ngoc Han Lefur said that Vietnamcould achieve an increase in desirable social mobility if policy makers realisethe great importance of the role of education, quality vocational training, asupport mechanism for migrant workers and the need to reduce disparitiesbetween urban and rural areas and between Kinh and ethnic minority groups.
“Tackling inequality before it becomes too deep is urgent,” she said. – VNA
VNA
