Publication: Rapid Economic Growth but Rising Poverty Segregation: Will Viet Nam Meet the SDGs for Equitable Development?
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2025-02-20
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2025-02-20
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Viet Nam is widely regarded as a success story for its impressive economic growth and poverty reduction in the last few decades. Yet, recent evidence indicates that the country’s economic growth has not been uniform. Compiling and analyzing new, extensive province-level data from the Vietnam Household Living Standards Surveys spanning 2002 to 2020 and other data sources, this paper finds within-province inequality to be much larger than between-province inequality. Furthermore, this inequality gap has been rising over time. Despite the country’s fast poverty reduction, the poor were increasingly segregated in certain provinces, particularly those with a larger ethnic minority population. The analysis finds a beneficial impact of economic growth on poverty reduction, but this can depend on inequality levels. It also finds that greater inequality has had negative effects on economic growth but varying negative effects on different poverty indicators. The paper provides supportive evidence of the beneficial impact of economic transitions from agriculture to non-agriculture. The results suggest that policy makers in Viet Nam should focus on reducing spatial disparities and income inequality to attain sustainable economic development.
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“Dang, Hai-Anh H.; Dhongde, Shatakshee; Do, Minh; Nguyen, Cuong Viet; Pimhidzai, Obert. 2025. Rapid Economic Growth but Rising Poverty Segregation: Will Viet Nam Meet the SDGs for Equitable Development?. Policy Research Working Paper; 11067. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/42840 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
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