AUSTRALIA-WORLD BANK GROUP STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP IN VIETNAM Gender Theme VIETNAM’S FUTURE JOBS THE GENDER DIMENSION ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This note was prepared by Wendy Cunningham, Lead Economist, Social Protection and Jobs Global Practice; Farima Alidadi, consultant; and Helle Buchhave (Task Team Leader), Senior Social Development Specialist, Social, Urban, Rural and Resilience Global Practice of the World Bank. It was prepared as part of the Gender Theme of the Australia–World Bank Partnership Program II (ABP II). The note draws on the Vietnam Jobs Diagnostic led by Wendy Cunningham and Obert Pimhidzai, Senior Economist, Poverty Global Practice. The Gender Theme of the ABP II carries out comprehensive data- and evidence-based analyses on emerging challenges to gender equality and provides support to policy makers and innovative activities to address these challenges and increase women’s economic empowerment. The ABP II is funded by the Government of Australia. For more information please contact Dung Thuy Vu, Team Assistant, World Bank Hanoi (dvu1@worldbank.org). Copyright © 2018 The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank Group 1818 H Street, NW, Washington, DC 20433 USA All rights reserved. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this report are entirely those of the authors and should not be attributed in any manner to the World Bank, or its affiliated organizations, or to members of its board of executive directors or the countries they represent. The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this publication and accepts no responsibility whatsoever for any consequence of their use. Photo credits: All are The World Bank, except for photo on page 9 is Shutterstock. 2 VIETNAM FUTURE JOBS THE GENDER DIMENSION Jobs are the foundation of economic and social development, with significant implications for gender equality. Jobs can improve livelihoods and reduce poverty, promote economic growth, and bring together people from different social and ethnic backgrounds. They are a means to promote gender equity and transform it into social and economic progress. Jobs increase women’s ability to make their own choices, support their families, and participate more actively in their communities. However, various gender-related factors hinder women from fully accessing or benefiting from jobs. This note summarizes progress toward and challenges to gender equality in terms of jobs in Vietnam, based on the World Bank’s new publication Vietnam’s Future Jobs: Leveraging Megatrends for Greater Prosperity. The note also provides policy options for moving toward more gender-equitable jobs. Vietnam will only reach its goal of becoming a middle- Emerging megatrends are expected to create new income, inclusive, and democratic country if it closes risks and opportunities around jobs for Vietnamese the economic and social gaps between men and women. women. Demographic trends will expand “pink collar” Gender equality across jobs is a key input to achieving jobs in the form of market-based eldercare. The rise this development goal. Women who access and thrive of knowledge economies can benefit women, who in modern jobs will generate economic growth, earn have higher education rates than men. However, if not higher incomes, and develop agency and voice to play managed, these same trends could threaten the advances a more proactive role in their personal and public lives. already made by women. The aging population may This knowledge note summarizes findings specifically require more of women’s homecare time, thereby related to challenges and opportunities for women crowding out time for work. The rise of knowledge workers from the World Bank’s Vietnam Jobs Diagnostic economies may by-pass women, because they are less titled: Vietnam’s Future Jobs: Leveraging Megatrends for engaged than men in science, technology, engineering, Greater Prosperity (box 1). and mathematics (STEM) education and careers. The Vietnam’s Future Jobs: Leveraging Mega-Trends for Six reforms can set the stage for more inclusive Greater Prosperity report outlines the future of jobs and higher quality jobs for women: in Vietnam and portends a better future for women 1. Revising the labor code to guarantee equality of labor workers. In fact, women’s jobs have improved in recent market opportunities between men and women; years. The emergence of the export-oriented apparel and 2. Alleviating household constraints, especially due to textiles sector created more than one million wage-paying the aging population, through the development of a jobs, most of which were filled by women. The gender comprehensive long-term care system; wage gap has been falling since 2008. The gap in women’s 3. Fostering gender-neutral and female-friendly industry and men’s labor force participation is low by global through trade and foreign investment strategies; standards; and female labor participation rates are high. 4. Providing skills training and mentoring to expand job opportunities for women in the traditionally male- However, women are not faring as well in other aspects dominated STEM-related fields; of the labor market. The wage gap persists due to 5. Using labor law and the workplace to encourage a occupational segregation, the burden of unpaid family shift in gender norms; and care, discrimination against women in the workplace, and 6. Leveraging the potential of agro-chains to open labor laws that limit women’s careers options. Women market opportunities for women from ethnic from ethnic minority groups fare particularly poorly due minority groups to the dual hit of gender and ethnic disparities. 3 BOX 1: Vietnam’s future jobs: leveraging mega-trends for greater prosperity Jobs have been a key part of Vietnam’s rapid transformation to a modern, globally integrated, and middle-income country. The World Bank report, Vietnam’s Future Jobs: Leveraging Mega-Trends for Greater Prosperity, explores the challenges and opportunities facing Vietnam. It argues that Vietnam’s 50 million jobs, along with its transformation toward a service and manufacturing economy, in addition to its impressive labor productivity and wage growth, have contributed to plunging poverty rates and strong economic growth over the last decades. New transformational megatrends could threaten or positively shift Vietnam’s employment landscape. For example, the rise of knowledge-intensive industries will require new skill sets, production processes, and export models; an aging population will demand care services from a shrinking working age population; and automation could replace some workers and transform the jobs of others. Vietnam’s jobs structure is not conductive to adapting to these megatrends. Most of Vietnam’s jobs are in family farming, household enterprises, or low-skilled labor which may not translate to better jobs. Few jobs are currently positioned to embrace the megatrends: only 2.2 million jobs are offered by foreign factories paying more than minimum wage, while registered domestic firms do not provide more than six million jobs. However, policy actions can support the segments of the economy that could leverage the megatrends to create more, better, and inclusive jobs. Three areas of reform are needed: (1) creating more jobs in jobs-intensive segments of the modern sector, specifically through Vietnam’s small and medium enterprises, agro-industry, and value chains; (2) enhancing the quality of jobs in traditional sectors such as family farming and household enterprises; and (3) connect qualified workers to the right jobs, which requires a mix of upgrading skills, matching jobs to people, and alleviating constraints to work. Progress Toward Gender Equality force much higher than would be expected for a country at its level of development. in Vietnam’s Labor Market Relative to men, Vietnamese women fare well by some The rate of women’s participation in Vietnam is labor market measures. Their participation rate in the lower than that of men, unless women’s domestic labor force is high, with 76 percent of adult women (ages responsibilities are accounted for, in which case the 15–64) working in the country compared with 49.6 rates are equal. Approximately 84 percent of men percent of women globally and 61.1 percent of women in work in the country, meaning that in the week before East Asia and the Pacific. Vietnam is far above the trend the survey, they spent at least an hour doing labor that line, with the rate of women participating in the labor earned them a wage or created output that could be sold (monetized). This definition does not include, and thus labor force participation rates do not count, work FIGURE 1: Female labor force participation, global, that cannot be monetized. Among women who are not 2015 “working,” 40 percent claim that they are dedicated 100 to homecare compared with 2 percent of men. If we 90 expand the definition of “working” to include those who are dedicated to homecare, both men and women 80 labor force participation rate would have labor force participation rates of about 70 85 percent. During the prime working ages of 30–55, 60 almost all women and men work (figure 2). Under this 50 definition, a higher share of women work into old age 40 than men do. 30 20 Working women are more likely to be engaged in contract wage employment, while men dominate 10 6.00 8.00 10.00 12.00 noncontracted wage employment. Women are 8.8 percent In (GDP per capita, 2011 international $) less likely to hold wage-paying jobs than men with similar characteristics (Demombynes and Testaverde 2018), Source: Author’s calculations based on World Development Indicators (extracted June 2017). but they are 2 percent more likely to hold a wage-paying job with a contract than men with similar characteristics 4 FIGURE 2: Time use according to age by women (left) and men (right) 100% 100% 90% 90% Inactive: others 80% 80% 70% 70% Inactive: homecare 60% 60% 50% 50% Inactive: in school 40% 40% 30% 30% Unemployed 20% 20% 10% 10% 0% 0% Employed 15-19 20-24 25-29 30-34 35-39 40-44 45-49 50-54 55-59 60-64 15-19 20-24 25-29 30-34 35-39 40-44 45-49 50-54 55-59 60-64 Source: Author’s calculations based on Labor Force Survey 2015. such as age, level of education, and region. This means companies operating in Vietnam were women, almost that working women have greater access to social 1.5 million workers. The gender imbalance is largely due benefits through their jobs and are guaranteed at least a to the concentration of exports and foreign investment minimum wage. Men, by contrast, hold 70 percent of the in traditionally female sectors, particularly textiles uncontracted wage-paying jobs. and apparel. Indeed, women’s employment increased substantially at registered firms in the textile and apparel The growing export sector, particularly textiles, has sectors from 2004 to 2014, even as their overall share in been a strong source of contracted wage-paying work the industry remained constant at 80 percent (figure 3). for women. By 2012, women held 53 percent of export Services and commerce are also important sectors for jobs compared with 35 percent held by men (Hollweg female employment in registered firms, although not to 2017). By 2015, 68 percent of workers in foreign-owned the same extent as apparel and textiles (figure 3). FIGURE 3: Female employment in registered firms, count and as a share of the sector’s labor force, 2004 and 2014 0.8 1.2e+06 2004 2014 1.0e+06 0.6 800,000 600,000 0.4 400,000 0.2 200,000 0 0 Personal Social Utility Agriculture and Mining Construction Food Commerce Services Apparel Textiles and Leather Other manufacturing Construction Agriculture and Mining Services Commerce Utility Other manufacturing Personal Social Food Textiles and Leather Apparel Source: Aterido and Hallward-Dreiemeir 2017, using the Vietnam Enterprise Census. 5 FIGURE 4: Gender wage gap, accounting for demographic, gender, and occupational distribution differences between men and women, 2011–14 -10% -11% relative to reference group % change in hourly wages -12% -13% -12.6% -14% Challenges: Gender Wage Gap and -15% -14.3% -14.2% the Related Underlying Gender Gaps -15.4% -16% The gender wage gap persists, although it has fallen 2011 2012 2013 2014 in recent years. Men earn about 10 percent more than women, which is surprising because, as noted above, Source: Demombynes and Testaverde 2018. Note: The reported coefficients are the marginal effects of probit regressions women are more likely than men to be in contracted wage- that focus on the probability of holding a wage-paying job paying jobs. When the earnings of Vietnamese men and (conditional on being employed) and control for a cubic in age, urban/ rural, region, education level, gender, and ethnic minority status. women with similar education levels, living in the same regions, and of the same age and ethnicity are compared, the gender wage gap is even higher at 12.6 percent. This means that women earn 12.6 percent less than men with Underlying Gender Gaps Related to the the same education, ethnicity, and age profile. However, as Labor Market and Social Norms Help to figure 4 illustrates, this gap has decreased in recent years, Explain the Gender Wage Gap falling from 15.4 percent in 2011 to 12.6 percent in 2014 (figure 4) (Demombynes and Testaverde 2018). 1. Women are disproportionately represented in low-paying occupations In fact, the gender earnings gap is likely larger than with lower rates of return. Women the wage gap. The gender wage gap only measures the dominate in the service and sales jobs difference in remuneration between men and women (figure 5), which are among the lowest who hold wage-paying jobs. But 66 percent of Vietnam’s paying (figure 6). But even there, men earn more than jobs do not pay a wage. Instead, family farmers and women. In fact, women only earn more than men as household enterprise owners are remunerated through clerks, another relatively low-paying occupation. their profits. Women work in these types of jobs more than men do. For example, in 2015, almost 52 percent The occupational segregation may be related to of farm workers were women, and approximately underlying gender disparities. While girls and boys have 48 percent were men. About 55 percent of self- different career goals that, if fulfilled, would result in employed nonfarm workers were also women compared higher female earnings, these aspirations begin to shift with 45 percent men. These two types of jobs are low as they become women and men. During postsecondary productivity and return earnings that are on average school, girls begin to cluster into management, education, below the minimum wage. Further, they tend to be risky and health; boys cluster into information technology and sources of income because they are subject to adverse the sciences. Factors related to nonwage-paying jobs, weather shocks and are highly sensitive to small price such as the stability of having a formal contract, social changes or shifts in consumer buying patterns. They insurance, paid leave, and shorter weekly hours, may be tend to require long working hours and difficult work traded off for lower pay, including low-level public sector conditions. Women also make up a large share of unpaid jobs (Chowdhury et al. 2018). Further, the flexibility family work in agriculture. of owning one’s own firm is more valued by women— 6 who say that they can better balance their work at home women spend significantly more hours on household with this type of job; this may push women into jobs work than men. For example, ActionAid Vietnam (2016) offering lower remuneration. collected information on time use from 800 people in 9 provinces and found that women worked an average of 35 Gender segregation also persists at the top of the hours per week compared with 21 hours for men. Women occupation ladder. Only 25 percent of managers are without an education worked more than 9 hours of women, and they earn 91 cents on the dollar (figures unpaid care work daily. These household responsibilities, 5 and 6). At the top of the occupational pyramid, 22 with time requirements equivalent to a full-time job, limit percent of firms had a female top manager in 2015,1 women’s access to the labor market. Jobs requiring long and female-led enterprises tend to be smaller than working hours, that are remotely located (requiring long male-led ones. In Vietnam—and in the East Asia travel), or that offer unusual working hours may not be region as a whole, female entrepreneurs consider their compatible with household responsibilities, limiting lower level of managerial skills to be barriers to their employment options for women. These factors may also success. For example, a survey of 500 female enterprise push women toward jobs that pay less in exchange for owners (men were not surveyed) indicated that female more family-friendly policies, such as family leave and entrepreneurs wanted to improve their skills, especially social insurance (Chowdhury et al. 2018). in business management and leadership, through training and education (World Bank 2012b). While The homecare constraints to bettering women’s jobs may female participation is low in top managerial positions, become more intense as an aging population increasingly it is about 50 percent higher in firm ownership.2 demands women’s time for eldercare. The child and elderly dependency ratio is expected to grow into the 2. Time use and household respon­ foreseeable future (figure 7). This growth is driven by sibilities limit women’s choices and an aging population because child dependency ratios gains from the job market. Social are expected to remain constant. The increasing number norms still dictate that women are of elderly could put pressure on women to provide responsible for the household. In fact, unpaid care services for family members, crowding out FIGURE 5: Share of each occupation that is female, FIGURE 6: Mean Monthly Wage Earnings by Occu­­ vertical line is gender parity pation, 2015 dong and female-to-male earnings ratio elementary occupations 9000 9000 1.20 1.20 elementary occupations 8000 8000 1.00 7000 1.00 machinists/assembly 7000 machinists/assembly 6000 6000 0.80 0.80 5000 craft workers 5000 0.60 4000 0.60 craft workers 3000 4000 0.40 skilled ag 2000 3000 0.40 skilled ag 2000 0.20 1000 0.20 service/sales 0 1000 0.00 service/sales 0 0.00 c p sio s ss s ls s es sk rs es hi es t w ls g anals ers le bly al s r l mserv lerk /s ion ac of af a a na na of age l of ge sa rk m pr cr ion lled ry ssem clerks io ice as es ag s ly ns t c pr na ice/ em nis si o rk er an b rv cup tio s i es st ork d ry ssem fe m clerks en ts/o le se occ pa ro il tw pr a assoc professionals sk cu a af s/ ta so oc cr assoc professionals as ni c professionals ta hi so ac en el as m em professionals managers el managers Mean monthly earnings Female:male earnings ratio 0 20 40 60 80 Mean monthly earnings Female:male earnings ratio 0 20 40 60 80 Source: Adapted from GSO 2016. Note: Solid vertical line is gender parity. Source: Author’s calculations based on GSO 2016. 1 Data is from the Gender Statistics Database, World Bank, Washington, 2 Ibid. DC (accessed May 2018) https://data.worldbank.org/data-catalog/ gender-statistics. 7 their time for work or pushing them into lower-paying but family-friendly jobs. FIGURE 7: Vietnam dependency ratio, by youth and older adults, 2015–50 3. Gender discrimination and social 70.0 % of working age population norms play a role in the gender wage 60.0 gap, but they are more difficult to 50.0 measure. While Article 40 of the 40.0 Law on Gender Equality mandates nondiscrimination based on gender in hiring, there is still 30.0 discrimination in recruitment.3 For example, a review of 20.0 advertisements for top managers and supervisors found 10.0 that 65 percent specified a male (gender) requirement for 0.0 the job (ILO 2016). In addition, social norms on women’s 2015 2020 2025 2030 2035 2040 2045 2050 traditional role in society help explain the gender wage gap. According to results from the 2001 World Values old dependency youth dependency Survey, 86 percent of respondents stated that being a Source: Demombynes and Testaverde 2018. housewife was just as fulfilling as working for pay (Dalton Note: The reported coefficients are the marginal effects of probit regressions and Ong 2001), and 86 percent of them also agreed that a that focus on the probability of holding a wage-paying job (conditional on being employed) and control for a cubic in age, urban/rural, region, woman needed to have children to fulfill their role. education level, gender, and ethnic minority status. 4. Labor laws may introduce gender disparities. Laws created with good adult lives not working. For women, the legal retirement intentions could still introduce gender age reduces their careers earlier than those of men, inequalities. For example, Article 160 decreasing their prospects for promotion (World Bank of the Labor Code excludes women 2011). It may also limit their chances of receiving training from 70 occupations that policy makers deem as harmful to advance to senior positions later in their careers. to childbearing and parenting functions, such as work that requires regular immersion in water or regular Ethnic Minority Women and underground work in mines. Women should be given the choice to decide whether they would like to work in the Double Burden such jobs, regardless of their parental status, especially Women from ethnic minority groups are particularly because these sectors may offer better pay. For example, challenged, facing both gender and ethnicity-related in 2008, the average yearly salary per worker in mining constraints in the labor market. Ethnic minorities are and quarrying was VND 51,687,149, or approximately less likely than people of Kinh or Hoa ethnicity to hold US$2,269 (Ha 2012), which is slightly higher than the a wage-paying job and, as discussed above, women are average annual income of US$2,200 per worker in 2017 generally less likely to hold a wage-paying jobs than men. (PwC 2017). Only 17 percent of working women who do not self- identify as Kinh or Hoa hold a wage-paying job compared 5. Pension laws may contribute to with 22 percent of Kinh or Hoa women and 32 percent the gender wage gap. The structure of of men who belong to an ethnic minority. Furthermore, the country’s pension system provides women from ethnic minority groups who do hold wage- incentives for workers to retire at an paying jobs earn 17 percent less than ethnic minority early age. Article 54 of the Law on Social men, 35 percent less than Kinh or Hoa women, and 50 Insurance mandates that men and women retire at 60 and percent less than nonethnic minority men. Female ethnic 55, respectively.5 Because they can retire and receive full minorities are clustered in lower-paying and less-stable benefits at those ages, many spend almost half of their agricultural self-employment roles. For example, 59 percent of women from ethnic minority groups are self- 3 Based on data from the Women, Business, and the Law database, World Bank, employed in agriculture compared with 40 percent of Washington, DC (accessed May 2018), http://wbl.worldbank.org. 4 Ibid women from the ethnic majority (table 1). 8 TABLE 1: Jobs portfolio of rural people by gender, 2014 Male Female Ethnic minority Ethnic majority Ethnic minority Ethnic majority Have a wage-paying job (%) 32 34 17 22 Self-employed in agricultural role (%) 62 40 59 40 Self-employed in nonagricultural role (%) 4 11 6 13 Annual earnings, agriculture 5,074 8,201 3,531 5,684 (in thousands of Vietnamese dong) Annual earnings, wage-paying 11,881 19,602 9,834 15,058 (in thousands of Vietnamese dong) Source: Institute of Policy and Strategy for Agriculture and Rural Development (IPSARD)’s estimate based on Vietnam Household and Living Standard Survey 2014 (VHLSS) and UN Women 2016. Various gender-based constraints underlie the • Rise of the Asian consumer class. The consumer class aforementioned gaps between the ethnic minority in Vietnam and the region is growing and is expected groups and the dominant Kinh group. For example, to demand more and higher-value goods and services. women from some ethnic minority groups spend more Jobs will diversify within sectors into higher value jobs than nine hours per day in unpaid care work compared and shift across sectors toward manufacturing and with five hours among Kinh women. Lower literacy rates, services. Because a large share of female employment inadequate access to basic services, and living in remote is in that sector, the expected manufacturing boom rural areas with higher rates of poverty also limit job may benefit women. The predicted growth in service opportunities for Vietnam’s ethnic minority women. jobs may also provide opportunities for women, who already cluster in the sectors. • Shifting trade patterns. Changing patterns of globalization toward more sophisticated exports that involve new technology and knowledge have the potential to create better jobs for women if the higher value-added domestic and Foreign Direct Investment led exports are in industries that typically hire women, such as textiles and food packaging. However, if the higher value-added exports are primarily in male- dominated sectors, such as heavy machinery or transport, or if women lack the needed skills for the new opportunities, women may be hindered in their ability to take full advantage of this megatrend. • Increase in global knowledge economies. Knowledge jobs are developing, especially in design, research and development, marketing, after-sale services, logistics, and vertical farming. These higher value-added jobs could help women move toward knowledge tasks that are further up the value chain. Opportunities for Leveraging Given their higher levels of education compared Megatrends with men, women could benefit, but their limited Moving forward, the evolving local and global landscape access to in-firm training compared with men may offers many opportunities for jobs in Vietnam. For limit their growth into these jobs. Vietnamese women, the new megatrends will affect their • Automation. Machines, robots, artificial intelligence, job landscape for better and worse. and information technology are entering workplaces 9 and will affect the nature and number of jobs available Women should be able to take maternity leave before for everyone. Jobs will become less gendered through or after a pregnancy, to curtail their maternity leave if automation, and women’s higher levels of education desired, and to be the sole decision maker regarding will help them with the skills to operate machinery. the suspension of a work contract due to pregnancy. However, there is a risk that the best source of jobs Gender discrimination for the 70 occupations should for women—the textile and apparel sector—will shed be eliminated. labor. To adjust, the industry needs to begin moving • Directly address gender discrimination, including toward specialized apparel and knowledge tasks that the introduction of clearly defined laws against are higher on the value chain and that cannot be sexual harassment as well as explicit and well-known replaced by machines. processes for to address it. • Demographics. The growth of the elderly population in Vietnam and in wealthy neighboring countries 2. Develop markets to alleviate household could either benefit or hinder women’s job prospects. constraints, especially those related to the A large elderly population is already increasing the aging population market for “pink collar jobs” in the care economy, both A comprehensive long-term care system is crucial. in Vietnam and around the globe. These occupations It should offer a broad range of services in homes, are already among the fastest growing and could be a communities, and institutions to alleviate the burden of substantial source of new jobs for women, although household eldercare on women. Thailand, for example, experience in other aging countries has demonstrated has a program in its rural areas that pays community- that these jobs often pay low wages. If this market based caregivers a monthly stipend to provide in-home does not grow in Vietnam, the demographic trends services. China has also implemented a pilot program could put pressure on women to provide unpaid that utilizes the role of the private sector to establish eldercare services for their families. or strengthen community care centers that provide comprehensive services (O’Keefe et al. 2016). These Opportunities for Preparing for a systems provide the support that would otherwise have been provided by daughters and daughters-in-law and Future of Gender Equality provides income to people wishing to remain active. Reforms are needed to set the stage for more productive, better paid, and higher quality jobs for women. While 3. Foster gender-neutral industries much has been written on the need for childcare services The rise of the knowledge economy, a growing service to alleviate women’s home burdens and greater access to economy, and a greater reliance on automation will education, this note proposes additional policy angles as favor more educated workers. Because women already described below. have higher education levels than men, these jobs should naturally benefit them, however, as noted 1. Promote laws for equality of opportunities above, it matters what is being exported. Policy makers Specific reforms can strengthen the labor code’s efforts should include a gender lens on their strategies for toward gender equality, including: negotiating foreign investment or for supporting • Equalize the cost to employers for hiring women export strategies. or men. Considering that women do the bulk of household work, labor laws can incentivize men to 4. Provide skills and mentoring to expand job absorb some of this burden. For example, annual opportunities for women in traditionally male- leave stipulations should be gender neutral. And the dominated sectors introduction of paternity leave into the labor code Vietnamese women can benefit from the employment could lower the cost differential of hiring women growth, however, more needs to be done to ensure their versus men. inclusion. Skills training for women must be prioritized. • Let women, rather than the law, make decisions Only 2 percent of women have technical or vocational about work, including allowing women to choose for secondary or higher education compared with less than themselves whether or not to accept overtime work 10 percent of men. As noted above, skills development and to determine the duration of their prenatal leave. is needed for both low- and high-skilled occupations. 10 Greater female engagement in STEM can encourage References women to diversify their job prospects, explore sectors Actionaid Vietnam. 2016. Making a house become a home. traditionally dominated by men, and be better prepared Policy Brief, ActionAid Vietnam. www.actionaid. for knowledge-intensive labor markets. org/sites/files/actionaid/ucw_policy_brief_-_en.pdf. Aterido, Reyes, and Mary Hallward-Driemeier. 2017. 5. Leverage labor laws and workplace norms “Demand for Labor: Enterprise Dynamics and Job to allow men to play more active roles in the Flows in Vietnam 2004–2014.” Unpublished. household and to be more willing to accept Chowdhury, Iffat, Elizaveta Perova, Hillary Johnson, women as their managers and Aneesh Mannava. 2018. Gender Streaming in Encouraging men to increase their participation in Vietnam. Washington, DC: International Bank for homecare and other related household responsibilities Reconstruction and Development/World Bank. is critical to reducing the burden on women and to Dalton, Russell J., and Nhu-Ngoc T. Ong. The Vietnamese making advancements toward gender equality. Such Public in Transition: The 2001 World Values a social change is a long process, but labor laws can Survey. Irvine, California: Center for the Study of provide incentives. Promoting a work environment Democracy, University of California. where women hold higher-level and managerial Demombynes and Testaverde. 2018. Employment positions will also force a change in gender norms Structure and Returns to Skill in Vietnam: Estimates in the workplace and provide role models for young Using the Labor Force Survey. Washington, DC: female professionals. World Bank. Ha, Thi Hong Van. 2012. “Industrial Readjustment in 6. Design policies that target women from Vietnam: Special Focus on the New 10 Year Socio- ethnic minority groups Economic Development Strategy for 2011-2020.” Many ethnic minorities are not engaging in the In Industrial Readjustment in the Mekong River emerging economy due to the remoteness of their Basic Countries: Toward the AEC, edited by Yasushi rural communities, their limited engagement with Ueki and Teerana Bhongmakapat, BRC Research the service and manufacturing sectors, and weak Report 7, Bangkok Research Center, IDE-JETRO, connections with developing the agriculture sector, Bangkok, Thailand. the food industry should invest in cities close to Hollweg, Claire. 2017. How Do Exports Support Labor in agricultural production bases to create employment Vietnam? Washington, DC: International Bank for opportunities. In addition, steps should be taken to Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank. enhance the quality of existing jobs for ethnic minority ILO (International Labor Organization) 2016. Asean communities, including those held by women, in the in Transformation: Perspectives of Enterprises and traditional sectors of agriculture and family farming. Students on Future Work. Bureau for Employers’ For example, encouraging the sector to diversify into Activities working paper 11, ILO, Geneva. high-value and varied crops that meet the demands Merotto, Dino, et al. 2016. “Vietnam Jobs Diagnostic” of the rising Vietnamese consumer class would be Presentation, Jobs Group. World Bank, Washington, DC. especially beneficial to ethnic minority women who PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers). 2017. Doing Business in depend heavily on agriculture as their main source Viet Nam 2017. Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam: PwC. of income. This would also allow them to balance UN Women (United Nations Entity for Gender Equality household and market work. and the Empowerment of Women). 2016. Towards Gender Equality in Viet Nam: Making Inclusive In closing, emerging megatrends offer Vietnam new Growth Work for Women. Hanoi: UN Women. opportunities to equalize the job prospects of men and World Bank. 2011. Vietnam Country Gender Assessment. women. Policy makers can contribute by developing Hanoi, Vietnam: World Bank. policies and incentives to capitalize on these megatrends World Bank. 2012a. World Development Report 2013: so that the new jobs not only benefit Vietnam’s women, Jobs. Washington, DC: World Bank. but also significantly advance the country’s development –––––––.2012b. Toward Gender Equality in East Asia and goal of becoming a middle-income, inclusive, and the Pacific: A Companion to the World Development democratic country. Report. Washington, DC: World Bank. 11 With support from: 8 Dao Tan Street, Ba Dinh District, Hanoi, Vietnam Telephone: +84 24 37740100 Facsimile: +84 24 37740111 Website: www.dfat.gov.au 8th Floor, 63 Ly Thai To Street, Hoan Kiem District, Hanoi, Vietnam Telephone: +84 24 39346600 Facsimile: +84 24 39346597 Website: www.worldbank.org/en/country/vietnam 12