Gender equality means that men and women have equal positions and roles, are given conditions and opportunities to develop their capacities for the development of the community and family and equally enjoy the achievements of the community. that development. Gender equality is assessed from many angles and is regulated in the Law on Gender Equality No. 73/2006/QH11 dated November 29, 2006. Gender equality in labor and employment is one of the important contents in the assessment of gender equality in the current period. In our country, gender equality has improved in recent years. However, there are still many differences between urban and rural areas; between economic regions
The population size has continuously increased in recent years, together with the advantage of golden population structure, has provided a huge human resource for the labor market in Vietnam, the labor force participation rate in Vietnam. The highest rate in Southeast Asia with 76.8%, the age group from 25-49 years old participating in the labor force is very high from 95.2%-96.7%. In which, the labor force participation rate among women is 76.8% which is also quite high rate which can be misinterpreted as an indicator of relatively low level of gender inequality in labor force participation. when this rate in men is only 81.9%. However, a closer look reveals a disproportionately “double burden”, and Vietnamese women face many persistent inequalities due to similarly different employment statuses. There is a clear disparity between men and women and inequality in unpaid work in family labor.
Among economic regions, the difference between male and female labor force participation rates in 2019 was highest in the Mekong River Delta when the female labor force participation rate was 66.1%, The South is 83.8% (17.7 percentage points difference), followed by the Southeast with 64.2% and 79.1% (14.9 percentage points difference), respectively. North Central and Central Coast have 75.2% and 83.3% (difference 8.1 percentage points), Central Highlands 80.3% and 87.7% (difference 7.4 percentage points), the Red River Delta 70.8% and 76.8% (6 percentage points difference), the Northern Midlands and Mountains have the lowest difference of 3.5 percentage points in the country when the similar ratios respectively 84.5% and 88%.
Table 1: Labor force participation rates by sex and region
Source: GSO, Labor and Employment Survey 2017, 2018, 2019
The scale of employed labor in the economy has also continuously increased over time, from 53.7 million people in 2017 to 54.6 million people in 2019, of which male workers increased from 27.9 million people to nearly 28.8 million people, and female workers increased from 25.8 million people to 25.9 million people. Labor restructuring continues to follow the trend of increasing the proportion of employees in the industrial and service sectors, and reducing the proportion of workers in the agriculture, forestry and fishery sectors. If we consider the two groups of vulnerable jobs separately (self-employed and family workers), we can see that the self-employment work of men and women in Vietnam is equivalent. However, women are more than twice as likely to become domestic workers than men. In 2019, two-thirds of domestic workers in Vietnam were women (5 million domestic workers were women). They account for nearly a quarter of rural women’s employment (17.6 million rural female workers), compared with only 2.7 million male domestic workers, accounting for 13% of total male employment in rural population (19.5 million people).
Employment status data show a significant disadvantage for women as the percentage of women who have access to and secure jobs is lower than that of men. A look at data on the structure of the economy by employment status shows that only 43 percent of employed women are wage workers, compared with 51.4% of employed men. While unpaid family labor for men is 9.2%, this figure for women is more than 2 times higher, 19.4% in 2019. The percentage of female wage earners increased from 37.9% in 2017 to 43% in 2019, this data shows the feasibility of the target set out of the indicator 1 – target 2 of the National Strategy on Gender Equality for the 2021-2030 period proposed “increase the proportion of female wage workers to 50% by 2025 and about 60% by 2030”. Indicator 2 – target 2 of the National Strategy on Gender Equality also sets out “Reduce the proportion of female workers working in the agricultural sector in the total number of female employed workers to less than 30% by 2025 and below 25% by 2030”. Currently, the proportion of workers in the agricultural sector tends to decrease gradually, but still accounts for 35.9% of women and 33.2% of men in 2019.
Table 2: Employed laborers by sex and status in employment
Source: GSO, Labor and Employment Survey 2017, 2018, 2019
Gender inequality is also reflected in the difference in access to education and training in general and trained labor in particular. The labor force is abundant and the labor force participation rate is high, but just over one-fifth of the employed workers have received training (22.6% in 2019), and there is a clear difference between men and women. For women, one out of every four male workers who have a job has been trained (the rate is 25%), and for women, only one out of every five workers who have a job has been trained (the rate is 20 percent). This rate is especially low for female workers in rural areas (only 12.3% in 2019) only nearly one third of the rate in urban areas (36.3%). In order to promote the implementation of the Indicator 2, Target 2 of the National Strategy on Gender Equality, which sets out “Reducing the proportion of female workers working in the agricultural sector in the total number of female employees in employment to less than 30% by 2025 and less than 25% by 2030”, resources for training and vocational training still need to be given more priority to rural areas, especially women in rural areas. By economic region, the Mekong River Delta has the lowest percentage of trained female workers at 11.9%, followed by the Central Highlands 13.6%, the Northern Midlands and Mountains 15.9%, North Central and Central Coast 18.4%, the Southeast 25.1% and the highest rate is the Red River Delta with 27.8%.
Table 3: Proportion of trained workers by sex and urban, rural and economic regions
Source: GSO, Labor and Employment Survey 2017, 2018, 2019
Inequality in access to employment is also reflected in the unemployment rate. It can be seen that the unemployment rate in Vietnam is relatively low, it is only 2% in 2019. The high labor force participation rate and low unemployment rate was hidden the relatively poor quality jobs of women when the employment status data show that women make up the majority of unpaid family workers, especially women in rural areas, underdeveloped economic areas, remote areas, ethnic minority areas should bear many risks, do not have much access to social protection services, income is precarious and vulnerable. This also partly explains why the real employment rate in rural areas of 1.5% (females 1.5%) is significantly lower than the rate of 2.9% (females 3%) in urban areas.
It can be said that there has been much progress in gender equality. However, gender inequality in labor and access to jobs in our country still exists and there is a disparity between urban and rural areas; between socio-economic regions. This requires more efforts of all levels and sectors in gradually narrowing this inequality gap.