Demographic and social change in Vietnam

Abstract

The end of the Vietnam War in 1975 sparked Western interest in aiding in the reconstruction of Vietnam, but this came to an abrupt halt in the late 1970s when Vietnamese troops moved into Cambodia. Following the government's renewed commitment to economic reform (doi moi) in 1986, and the withdrawal of its troops from Cambodia during 1989, Vietnam is once again opening up to the Western world. However, information on social and economic conditions in contemporary Vietnam is scarce. With a total population of 64.4 million on the 1st of April 1989, Vietnam is the second largest country in Southeast Asia. Two complementary papers commenting on recent demographic and social change in Vietnam are included in this Briefing Paper. They draw on the first results of the Five Percent Sample from the 1989 Population Census, released in March this year, to profile key aspects of recent social change. Terry Hull summarises the principal trends infertility, marriage and mortality, while Dean Forbes looks at the pattern of urbanisation and urban growth, and the emerging spatial structure of the country.