Are women still holding up half of heaven in Vietnam? The gender wage gap

The coexistence of the government sector, state-owned enterprises (SOEs), and private sector provides a natural setting to examine the impact of economic reform in Vietnam on gender earning differentials. The three sectors reflect different degrees of influence of the Socialist ideology, with the private sector most liberalised. Have women fared better during the transition into a market economy? One might expect, a priori, female workers in the private sector may be more likely to be discriminated against especially because employees can freely choose whom to employ. Using the Vietnam Living Standards Survey 1992-1993, this paper has found that gender wage differences are evident in the private sector and SOEs. Further, discrimination accounts for more of the gender wage gap in the private sector than in the SOEs.