Social Reproduction in Vietnam: Educational Attainment, Employment, and Skills Usage

• In Event: Roundtable Session 34
  In Roundtable Session: The Importance of Social Context

Abstract

Education can be seen as a social structure that reproduces the existing levels of social, economic, and cultural distributions. In comparison to the works that have been done, there has been less work done on social stratification and reproduction in Asia, particularly for Southeast Asian countries. Using Vietnam as a case study, this paper seeks to examine how these theories hold up in a context that has been less examined. The findings suggested that prior levels of social stratification were predictive of educational attainment, and educational attainment was predictive of employment once the Vietnam context was taken into account. Moreover, higher educational attainment was also predictive of having occupations in economic sectors that had less repetitive work and more autonomy.

Author

• Tuan Nguyen, Vanderbilt University - Peabody College