Asian Barometer Survey Wave 4 2014-2016 TECHNICAL REPORT (VIETNAM) By Taylor Nelson Sofres Vietnam for Asian Barometer Survey Center for East Asia Democratic Studies National Taiwan University November 2015 Contact Information Taylor Nelson Sofres Vietnam 203 Minh Khai street, Hai Ba Trung District, Hanoi Tel: 84-4-39877030 Fax: 84-4-39877037 Email: [email protected] Asian Barometer Survey No.1, Sec. 4, Roosevelt Road, Taipei 10617, Taiwan Center for East Asia Democratic Studies, College of Social Sciences National Taiwan University Tel: 886-2-3366-8456 Fax: 886-2-2365-7179 Email: [email protected] 1. BASIC INFORMATION 1.1 LOCATION The Asian Barometer 2015 Survey covered the entire Viet Nam, and had 6 major study areas: Northern Midlands and Mountains, Red River Delta, North and South Central Coast, Central Highlands, Southeast, Mekong River Delta. 1.2 POPULATION With an estimated 85.8 million inhabitants (Census 2009), it is the world’s 13th – most – populous country, and the eight-most-populous country in Asia. According to census data, during the last decade the proportion of people living in urban areas increased from 23.7% in 1999 to 29.6% in 2009. This translates into a total of 25.4 million urban residents out of a national population of 85.8 million in 2009. The main increase in urbanization took place in the already large urban areas with 200,000 residents or more. The total number of these urban centres has increased from 9 in 1999 to 15 in 2009. 1.3 GOVERNMENT The Socialist Republic of Vietnam is a single-party state. Its current state constitution, which replaced the 1975 constitution in April 1992, asserts the central role of the Communist Party of Vietnam in all organs of government, politics and society. The General Secretary of the Communist Party performs numerous key administrative and executive functions, controlling the party’s national organization and state appointments, as well as setting policy. Only political organizations affiliated with or endorsed by the Communist Party are permitted to contest elections in Vietnam. These include the Vietnamese Fatherland Front and worker and trade unionist parties. Although the state remains officially committed to socialism as its defining creed, its economic policies have grown increasingly capitalist, with The Economist characterizing its leadership as “ardently capitalist communists”. 1.4 ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE The economy of Vietnam is a developing planned and market economy. Since the mid-1980s, through the "Đổi Mới" reforms, Vietnam has made a shift from a highly centralized planned economy to a socialist-oriented market economy which uses both directive and indicative planning. Over that period, the economy has experienced rapid growth. Vietnam’s economic growth has been among the highest in the world since 2000, and according to Citigroup, such high growth is set to continue. Vietnam has the highest Global Growth Generators Index among 11 major economies. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 2012, the nominal GDP reached $138 billion, with nominal GDP per capita of $1527. According to a forecast in December 2005 by Goldman Sachs, Vietnamese economy will become the World’s 21st largest economy in the world with nominal GDP of $ 436 billion and nominal GDP per capita of 4,357 USD by 2025. According to a forecast by the PricewaterhouseCoopers in 2008, Vietnam may be the fastest growing of emerging economies by 2025, with a potential annual growth rate of about 10% in real dollar terms, which would increase the size of the economy to 70% of the size of the UK economy and would surpass the GDP of countries such as Norway, Singapore and Portugal by 2050. Nowadays, Vietnam is in a period of being integrated into the global economy. Almost all Vietnamese enterprises are SMEs. Vietnam’s successful economic reforms resulted in it joining the World Trade Organization in 2007. Vietnam has become a leading agricultural exporter and served as an attractive destination for foreign investment in Southeast Asia. However, the country still suffers from relatively high levels of income inequality, disparities in healthcare provision, and poor gender equality. The impressive growth has also thrown up issues such as rapid urbanization and environmental degradation in Vietnam. Achieving sustainable development with attention to ecological conservation presents a great challenge for Vietnam’s policy-makers, but many efforts have been made in the last decade. It is believed that in spite of several laws aimed at environmental protection and sustainable growth, environmental management under these laws has proved rather ineffective. There is a lack of public awareness for the need for environmental protection. Conservation should begin at home, but in many areas, the people’s day-to-day activities unintentionally serve to destroy their natural environment.1 1.5 IMPORTANT POLITICAL AND SOCIAL EVENTS Vietnam has entered territorial disputes with China in the South China Sea in 2014 after China set up an oil rig in an area to which both nations have claimed. On 5 October 2015 Vietnam successfully concluded Trans- Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations with 11 countries which account for 40 % of global GDP. 1http://asiasociety.org/policy/environment/climate-change-and-energy/real-cost-developing-vietnam accessed on 6th February 2015 2. TIMETABLE Activity Duration Preparation Questionnaire translation: Translate English 2015/09/8 – 15 Core Questionnaire into Vietnamese Pretest the questionnaire 2015/10/2 – 6 Pre-fieldwork Preparations: Logistics, 2015/10/8 – 19 Script the questionnaire Training for supervisors and interviewers 2015/10/19 Fieldwork Northern Midlands and Mountains 2015/10/27 – 11/10 Red River Delta 2015/10/20 – 11/5 North and South Central Coast 2015/10/24 – 11/5 Central Highlands 2015/10/23 – 11/1 Southeast 2015/10/20 – 11/5 Mekong River Delta 2015/10/23 – 11/1 Data Processing Data cleaning 2015/11/12 – 23 Submission of Vietnam data for checking 2015/12/1 3. RESPONDENTS 3.1 CRITERIA OF SELECTING RESPONDENTS Only one eligible person (a man or a woman) above the age of 18 years was interviewed from each sampled household, quotas or any other selection criteria (including gender quota) was not used to screen respondents. However, post stratification weights were applied if necessary during the data analysis stage. In case more than one eligible respondent was present in the sampled household, the person to be interviewed was selected using KISH Grid method. 3.2 RESEARCH ETHNICAL REVIEW In Vietnam there is no need to obtain any permission for this type of research. For the ABS IV we did not need to go through the review process in Viet Nam. However, before the beginning of interview process, the interviewers informed all interviewees that ‘We will not record your name or any identifying information about you on the questionnaire. So no one will know who gave which answers to our questions. There is no risk to you in participating in the survey. There is also no benefit to you in participating in the survey. But if you answer our questions, you will help us understand how the public feels about issues facing the country today. Your participation in the survey is voluntary. If there are any questions you don't want to answer you don't have to answer them. And you can stop participating in the survey at any time’. 4. SAMPLING PROCESS AND METHODOLOGY 4.1 SAMPLING SIZES AND ERROR MARGINS The target population for the survey was people aged 18 years and above. The table below summarizes the population distribution by age group according to Vietnam Census 2009. Age Population Proportion of total population 0-17 26,402,057 30.6 18-24 12,236,909 14.2 25-34 14,751,222 17.1 35-44 12,578,901 14.6 45-54 9,923,869 11.5 55-64 4,951,194 5.7 ≥ 65 5,545,016 6.4 Total 86,389,168 100.0 The population distribution in Vietnam is as mentioned: Strata Vietnam population2 Proportion Urban 25,450,254 29.5 Rural 60,938,914 70.5 Total 86,389,168 100.0 As discussed, Vietnam is divided into 6 main geographic regions.3 We proposed to spread our sample across all the six geographic regions for a sample representative of 2 Census 2009 3 Census 2009 the universe. The distribution of provinces and population of the six major regions is as mentioned: No. of No Geographic Region Population Provinces 1 Northern Midlands and Mountains 14 11,595,761 2 Red River Delta 11 19,584,287 3 North and South Central Coast 14 18,835,154 4 Central Highlands 5 5,115,135 5 Southeast 6 14,067,361 6 Mekong River Delta 13 17,191,470 Once the sample size is proportionately distributed among the six major geographic regions, the distributed sample size was distributed albeit proportionately by urbanity within each region. Hence, broadly there were twelve strata. Proportionate distribution by urbanity within each region is as below: Geographic Number of Total Propor Total Proport Total Region provinces Urban tion Rural ion North Highlands & 14 11,595,761 1,822,021 16% 9,733,740 84% Mountains Red River 11 19,584,287 5,729,060 29% 13,855,227 71% Delta North and South 14 18,835,154 4,513,956 24% 14,321,198 76% Central Coast Central 5 5,115,135 1,416,122 28% 3,699,013 72% Highlands South East 6 14,067,361 8,043,806 57% 6,023,555 43% Mekong 13 17,191,470 3,925,289 23% 13,266,181 77% River Delta 63 86,389,168 25,450,254 29.5% 60,938,914 70.5% The proportionate distribution would result in 354 interviews to be covered from the urban areas and 846 interviews from the rural areas.