Женщины и их роль во вьетнамской экономике

Recently, thanks to its incredible economic growth, Vietnam is regularly mentioned in world news headlines. At the same time several high profile Vietnamese women are often appearing in the news for their outstanding business accomplishments. That is why we would like to give an outline of the position of the women in the Vietnamese economy and society to our readers.

According to the 2018 Mastercard Index of Women Entrepreneurs study, 31.3% of more than 500.000 Vietnamese businesses were owned by women. This places Vietnam on the sixth position out of 53 surveyed economies, in front of the majority of the European countries, the US, China and all other Asian nations, which also means that Vietnam is the first country in Asia from thanks to its large share of women-owned businesses. This study also places Vietnam on the 18th world position in an index that measures women’s advancement outcomes, access to knowledge, wealth and supporting entrepreneurial conditions. This rank puts Vietnam in a position similar to Thailand, Hong Kong, Switzerland, Poland, Costa Rica and Colombia. This study also underlines that women hold 25% of CEO or board-level positions in Vietnam, which is far above other regional powers like Singapore, Indonesia and Myanmar. Those figures support previous positive observations regarding gender equality in leadership positions in Vietnamese workplaces. More of that, Vietnam has one of the highest female labour force participation rates (i.e. the proportion of women who are working or looking for employment) in the world. Indeed 79% of the Vietnamese women aged from 15 to 64 are in the labour force, compared to 86% of the Vietnamese men. That figure places Vietnam higher than most of the European countries, and ten percent above China's female labour force participation rate.

One of the key factors for those outstanding achievements in terms of gender equality and women employment is Vietnam's legal framework that does not discriminate against women, and that does not set any formal barriers to improvement of women's situation. An other possible reason for those positive results, is the Vietnamese culture that is not judgmental against women achieving high positions in the society. Therefore Vietnamese women are visible everywhere across this country of nearly 100 million inhabitants: they are running famous companies, holding high positions in the government, and they often do jobs frequently associated with men, such as construction workers, gardeners, taxi drivers, police officers, etc...

In female leadership, Forbes Vietnam released in March 2019 a list of the 50 most influential Vietnamese women working in sectors such as politics, business, education, science, social activities, media, entertainment, creativity and sports. It was not a surprise to discover that the sector with the highest number of influential Vietnamese women was business having 20 names on the list. The second sector with the highest number of influential women was politics with 9 names on the list, and both of those sectors combined account for more than the half of the most influential Vietnamese women in 2019, which reflects quite accurately the role of women in the Vietnamese society and their contribution to the Vietnamese economy.

As a conclusion Vietnam is certainly the most advanced Asian country in terms of gender equality. Thanks its egalitarian legal framework and its general standing towards female leadership Vietnamese women have been allowed to play a significant role in the Vietnamese economy and its impressive growth. Maybe women are one of the reasons for the Vietnamese economic miracle?

Vietnam Australia
Viet Australia Auditing Company es una organización de auditoría independiente autorizada y establecida en 2007 en la República Socialista de Vietnam.