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Despite its low middle-income status, Vietnam has been widely praised for its success in the fight against early waves of the COVID-19 pandemic, with a low mortality rate of approximately 100 deaths out of a population of less than 100 million by the end of 2020. We add to the emerging literature on COVID-19 effects on the labor market for poorer countries by analyzing rich individual-level data from Vietnam’s Labor Force Surveys spanning 2015 to 2020. We find post-pandemic increases in unemployment and temporary layoff rates alongside decreases in employment quality. Monthly wages declined even as the proportion of workers receiving below-minimum wages substantially increased, contributing to sharply rising wage inequality. Our findings suggest that more resources should be allocated to protect vulnerable workers, especially as the pandemic continues to cause increasingly severe damage to the global economy.

This study provides evidence on the trends and drivers of inequality in Vietnam using Vietnam Household Living Standard Surveys. We find that inequality, regardless of the choice of welfare indicators and inequality measurements, has been stable in Vietnam. Inequality in income or expenditure is remarkably lower than inequality in assets. In 2016, the Gini coefficient of per capita expenditure and per capita income was 0.35 and 0.39, respectively, while the Gini coefficient in electricity consumption and housing value was 0.42 and 0.62, respectively. Using the decomposition analysis, we find that inequality between provinces accounts for 22% of the total inequality, while inequality between ethnic groups accounts for 15% of the total inequality. The regression analysis shows that inequality tends to be higher in provinces with higher initial income and poverty. This implies that high-income people are more likely to benefit from economic growth, especially in better-off provinces.

This study explores the impact of COVID-19 and how Vietnamese citizens perceived and experienced measures adopted by central and local governments to contain the CVODI-19 pandemic in 2021. In general, the COVID-19 pandemic had a more severe impact in 2021 than in 2020. Citizens showed great concern about their children’s education (76 percent) and their personal health (68 percent). COVID-19 negatively impacted employment and income, with 77 percent of the respondents reporting income reduction due to the pandemic. The poor, ethnic minorities, unskilled, non-farm workers, and those working in the service sector or living in provinces with longer lockdowns were the most likely to suffer. Compared with 2020, in 2021, respondents showed a high but declining positive assessment of government performance in dealing with the pandemic, with 84 percent of the respondents rating the responses from the Central Government as good or very good (97 percent in 2020), 89 percent rating the response from their provincial governments’ responses as good or very good (94 percent in 2020). Only 13 percent of the respondents received support from the Government’s package. However, ethnic minorities, female, poorer and rural respondents were less likely to receive the support. For the support recipients, delivery was regarded as timely and transparent, but administrative procedures to get access to the package were not simple. Meanwhile, support from non-governmental organizations (NGOs), social organizations, charity foundations, and individuals was distributed more efficiently, with 25 percent of the respondents receiving support from these sources.

In this study, we find that the negative effect of unexploded ordnance (UXO) on the geographical density of foreign direct investment and large firms is a new channel through which the war legacy impedes local development in Vietnam. A 1% increase in the proportion of UXO-contaminated area leads to a 0.78% relative decrease in the density of FDI firms within districts. Point estimates for the elasticity of the density of joint-venture FDI firms and state-owned enterprise (SOEs) due to UXO are smaller, equal to -0.56 and -0.54. Consequently, a 1% increase in the proportion of UXO-contaminated areas leads to a 0.46% relative decrease in the intensity of nighttime light.

We estimate the impact of temperature extremes on mortality in Vietnam, using daily data on temperatures and monthly data on mortality during the 2000-2018 period. We find that both cold and heat waves cause higher mortality, particularly among older people. This effect on mortality tends to be smaller in provinces with higher rates of air-conditioning and emigration, and provinces with higher public spending on health. Finally, we estimate economic cost of cold and heat waves using a framework of willingness to pay to avoid deaths, then project the cost to the year 2100 under different Representative Concentration Pathway scenarios.

This study uses a large-scale dataset from Vietnam to analyze the impacts of parental absence due to migration, death, or divorce on children's school enrollment, for children aged from 7 to 22. We find children from two-parent families have a better chance of enrolling at all levels of education than those from single-parent families. Within single-family types, the negative effect on children of parental divorce is higher than that of parental death, while the effect of parental migration is the lowest. Comparing the effect of single-father and single-mother households, we find that children living with a single mother tend to have higher school enrollment than those living with a single father, indicating the critical role of mothers in children's education.

Using household data from the Vietnam Household Living Standard Survey (VHLSS) and the sector-specific growth and remittance inflow projections by Asian Development Bank (ADB), this study first estimated the COVID-19 pandemic on income and poverty status of the Vietnamese households, and then simulated the impact of cash transfer programs by the government of Vietnam on the income and poverty status of households. Our simulations suggest that COVID-19 leads to substantial reduction in household's per-capita income, and results in additional 1.7 million poor people. The cash transfers would be pro-poor and helps bring about 1.2 million people out of poverty. The transfers would be particularly pro-poor for ethnic minority and rural persons and those working in severely affected economic sectors. Based on the findings, we discussed various policies to implement appropriate measures to help households cope with adverse economic impact of COVID-19.

Does the COVID-19 pandemic cause people unhappy? In this study, we use a recent survey from China, Japan, South Korea, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States to explore this question. We find a relatively large effect: a one per-mille point increase in the incidence of the COVID-19 cases increases the probability of unhappiness by 0.002. Possibly channels through which the COVID-19 pandemic causes unhappiness are negative effects on economic outcomes and social interactions of people. We also find that more disadvantaged people including poor, rural, female and older people are more likely to be affected by the pandemic.

The FIFA Soccer World Cups often happen within one month just before the national entrance exam to universities and colleges in Vietnam. Watching soccer matches can distract male students from their studies and reduce their probability to pass the exam. We find that Vietnamese men who had the university entrance exam during the FIFA Soccer World Cups tend to have a lower proportion of having a bachelor's degree. Exposure to World Cups also reduces the probability of having a formal job, a high-skilled job and management position for men. Using the exposure to World Cups as a natural shock for tertiary education, we find a large and positive effect of tertiary education on employment. It confirms the important role of education in reducing gender gap in employment.

The study aims to understand the impact of COVID-19 on citizens' livelihoods, the accessibility and effectiveness of the Government's relief packages, and public confidence and trust in the government responses to the pandemic. The study reveals several important findings as follows. First, the government responses to contain the COVID-19 outbreak have proved to be swift and effective, according to citizens surveyed. This is evident in the respondents' high consensus of strong support for government policy and actions to contain the pandemic. Importantly, people who have positive experiences with their provincial performance in governance and public administration were more supportive of the government's responses during the pandemic. Second, despite such government and citizen responses, the COVID-19 pandemic has generated negative impacts on the Vietnamese citizens and the national economy as a whole. The survey findings reveal that 24 percent of the respondents reported job losses because of the pandemic. These are also 65 percent of the respondents reporting income loss. Third, the findings of the survey reaffirm an overall positive feedback from citizens of and experience with the government's support package. People who received supports from the package were more likely to support the government's responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In this study, we examine characteristics of employment in FDI in Vietnam. Workers from FDI account for 5.6% of working people. Female and younger people are more likely to work the FDI sector. Compared with private and public sectors, the FDI sector has a lower share of workers who have tertiary education. The FDI sector has a high proportion of workers with social insurance, at 95%. However, there is a relatively large proportion of the FDI workers receiving daily wages and piece payment. The FDI workers have a high number of working hours and more likely to have overtime working hours. The FDI workers have lower wages per hour than those in the private and public sector. However, once observed characteristics of workers are controlled for, the FDI workers have higher hourly and monthly wages than the private as well as public workers. The proportion of FDI workers who moved out of the FDI sector was 11% over a three-month period and 31% over a two-year period. Older workers are more likely to move out of the FDI sector than young ones. There is no evidence that workers move out of the FDI sector after age 35.

Our study uses a small area estimation method to estimate the average and inequality of per capita kWh consumption for small areas in Vietnam. It shows evidence of a large spatial heterogeneity in the electric power consumption between districts and provinces in Vietnam. Households in the mountains and highlands consumed remarkably less electricity than those in the delta and coastal areas. Notably, we find a U-shaped relationship between the inequality of electricity consumption and economic levels in Vietnam. In poor districts and provinces, there is very high inequality in electricity consumption. Inequality is lower in middle-income districts and provinces.

Vietnam is widely praised for its successful fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. The country has had an extremely low mortality rate of 35 deaths to date (out of a population of approximately 100 million) and currently has no community transmission. We offer the first study that examines the effects of the COVID-19-induced lockdown on various employment outcomes for Vietnam. We employ difference-in-differences econometric models to estimate the causal effects of the lockdown, using rich individual-level data from the quarterly Labor Force Surveys. We find that the lockdown increases the unemployment rate, the temporary layoff rate, and decreases the quality of employment. It also reduces workers' numbers of working hours and their monthly incomes and wages. Our estimation results remain robust to different model specifications and estimation samples. Further heterogeneity analysis suggests that the effects vary across education levels and occupation sectors but are similar across regions or provinces with different lockdown durations.

Despite a rich literature studying the impact of inequality on policy outcomes, there has been limited effort to bring these insights into the debates about comparative support for government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. We fill in this gap by analyzing rich survey data from six countries spanning different income levels and geographical locations — China, Italy, Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States. We find that poorer individuals are less supportive of government responses, and that poorest individuals are least supportive. Furthermore, poorer individuals residing in more economically unequal countries offer even less government support. We also find that both economic and non-economic factors could affect the poor's decisions to support stringent government policies. These findings suggest that greater transfers to the poor may ameliorate their resistance, increase support for strict policies, and may reduce the potential deepening of social inequalities caused by the pandemic.

The COVID-19 outbreak has brought unprecedented disruptions to the global economies and has led to income loss and high unemployment rates. But scant, if any, evidence exists on gender gaps in economic outcomes such as income, expenditure, savings, and job loss in a multi-country setting. We investigate the impacts of COVID-19 on gender inequality in these outcomes using data from a six-country survey that covers countries in different geographical locations and at various income levels. Our findings suggest that women are 24 percent more likely to permanently lose their job than men because of the outbreak. Women also expect their labor income to fall by 50 percent more than men do. Perhaps because of these concerns, women tend to reduce their current consumption and increase savings. Factors such as the different participation rates in work industries for men and women may take an important part in explaining these gender gaps. Our estimates also point to country heterogeneity in these gender differences that is likely due to varying infection rates and shares of women in the labor force.

Little literature currently exists on the effects of childcare use on maternal labor market outcomes in a developing country context, and recent studies offer mixed results. This paper attempts to fill these gaps by analyzing several of the latest rounds of the Vietnam Household Living Standards Survey spanning the early to mid-2010s. Addressing endogeneity issues with a regression discontinuity estimator based on children's birth months, the paper finds a sizable effect of childcare attendance on women's labor market outcomes, including their total annual wages, household income, and poverty status. The effects of childcare attendance differ by women's characteristics and are particularly strong for younger, more educated women. Furthermore, childcare has a medium-term effect and positively impacts men's labor market outcomes as well.

In this study, we examine the effect of interview observation on data quality of a large-scale individual survey in Vietnam. External spot-check teams were sent to randomly selected enumeration areas to attend and observe survey training courses and field interviews of interviewers. We find that interviewers have a lower number of item non-responses in collected data when being observed by the spot-check teams. The effect of a spot-check of field interviews appears to be higher than the effect of a spot-check of training courses. However, we do not find a significant effect of a spot-check threat: informing interviewers of a possible spot-check without actually visiting does not reduce item non-responses.