The Gender Wage Gap in the Vietnamese Transition, 1993–2008

This essay examines wages and the gender wage gap between 1993 and 2008 in Vietnam. Our results reveal a slight increase in the mean of the gender wage gap from 2002 to 2008, which is mainly driven by a sharp increase in the gender wage gap for low-wage workers. Decomposition results suggest that the major part of the gender wage gap attributes to gender discrimination. While gender discrimination decreases for high-wage workers, it increases for low-wage workers. Over the period, wage growth is partly explained by changes in average characteristics but mainly due to increasing returns.