The literature on the middle class, and particularly urban middle class youth in Vietnam is decidedly patchy, and despite the importance of educated youth in post-reform Vietnam there has been very little research on young people in general and educated youth in particular (but see Marr, Reference Marr1996, Sakellariou and Patrinos, Reference Sakellariou and Patrinos2000, and Nguyen, Reference Nguyen2003). This paper has emerged from a more general comparative and cross-national investigation of middle class youth in Southeast Asia which is still in its preliminary stages. However, it is with great good fortune that we have been able to draw on data collected between October 2003 and January 2004 as part of a larger research project on Vietnamese youth, namely the Survey Assessment of Vietnamese Youth (SAVY), undertaken by the Vietnamese government (Ministry of Health and the General Statistics Office) and United Nations agencies (the World Health Organization and the United Nations Children's Fund). Out of the 7,584 youths (in the age group of 14–25) surveyed we have selected a sample of 226 interviewees (76 men and 150 women) aged between 19 and 25 years, who hailed from and resided mainly in urban areas from birth up to the time of the survey. They identified themselves as leaders, professionals, and middle- and senior-level technicians, and these categories fall within what we consider to be the middle class. Of the 226 young people, 143 lived and worked in four large cities (Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Hai Phong and Da Nang), and the remaining 83 were found in smaller urban centres across the country. We have to emphasize that the survey did not concentrate specifically on the issues which interest us in our developing research programme, but it does provide some valuable insights into certain characteristics of the young urban middle class in Vietnam and it enables us to indicate some future directions for research which, in our view, are likely to be especially fruitful.
Our information is also taken from a qualitative, ethnographic study conducted among 75 young, unmarried university graduates in Hanoi in 1999–2002 which focused on their life choices, values, behaviour and attitudes in relation to such themes as work, careers, interpersonal relations, family life and marriage, in the context of the new conditions of a market economy (Nguyen, Reference Nguyen2003). From these data we can begin to identify some of the significant issues surrounding the characteristics, identities, and lifestyles of young middle class people in modernizing Vietnam. In using both quantitative and qualitative materials we hope, in part at least, to address the critical issues which Kessler has raised in relation to the understanding of social class (2001). He casts doubt on the value of surveys and ‘quantifiable responses from individuals’ in that class, he argues, is about collective experiences and social processes (ibid.: 33). While we agree with his position we suggest that responses to carefully framed questions can tell us something more broadly about collective experiences and about the ‘cultural construction of social identities and phenomena’ (ibid.: 35); even more so if they are interrelated with in depth ethnographic research which focuses on individuals in action and which attempts to tease out how individuals experience and live their class position in everyday social and cultural life.
Our paper commences with a discussion of the problems of conceptualizing the middle class in Southeast Asia and some of the issues which have been raised in the recent literature. We then turn to a brief examination of social class issues in post-reform Vietnam to provide a context for the consideration of the primary data. We follow this with some of the main findings of the survey and ethnographic investigations, and finally make some observations on the key areas for future research both in Vietnam and more widely in Southeast Asia. Our paper draws some of its inspiration from the excellent work that has been undertaken on the middle class in Malaysia by Abdul Rahman Embong (Reference Abdul2001a, Reference Abdul and Embong2001b, Reference Abdul and Embong2001c, Reference Abdul2002) and Joel Kahn (Reference Kahn, Kahn and Loh Kok Wah1992, Reference Kahn, Robison and Goodman1996, Reference Kahn, Schmidt, Hersh and Fold1998).
The Middle Class in Southeast Asia
Much interest has recently been expressed in the phenomenon of the ‘new urban middle class’ in Southeast Asia and more generally in Asia, and as an important component of, in popular parlance, ‘the new rich’ along with ‘the new bourgeoisie’ (Robison and Goodman, Reference Garry1996a; Reference Pinches, Robison and Goodman1996b: 1; Pinches, Reference Pinches1999a, Reference Pinches and Pinches1999b: xi-xvi, Reference Pinches and Pinches1999c: 1–55, Reference Pinches and Pinches1999d: 275–301). Defined primarily by the acquisition and use of an advanced level of education, the emergence of a substantial middle class is the product of changes in the economic organization of developing societies (‘the capitalist revolution’ and the internationalization of capital) and the demand for trained people with new knowledge, skills and expertise (Hewison, Reference Hewison, Robison and Goodman1996: 142–145; Abdul Rahman Embong, Reference Abdul2002: 1, 3). Yet, in spite of this recent interest in these ‘new social forces’, Pinches has argued that, even in the late 1990s, there were ‘almost no socio-cultural accounts of privileged classes or status groups in industrializing Asia’ (1999c: 46; and see Kahn, Reference Kahn1991).
Niels Mulder too notes, since the 1970s, the emergence of ‘a quantitatively impressive, new middle stratum. . . whose members are the product of novel conditions that shape their lives and outlook, their culture and political demands’ (Reference Mulder, Draagsbaek Schmidt, Hersh and Fold1998: 99). He examines this stratum with reference to the Philippines, Java and Thailand and draws attention to the important difference between this new education-based stratum and earlier educated generations who went to university and college ‘as a matter of privilege’. More recently, those who acquire higher education do so primarily for ‘professional and career considerations’ and they are consumers par excellence in pursuit of new lifestyles; they purchase media products, fashion, cuisine, entertainment, tourism and educational services (ibid.: 100–101). As Robison and Goodman say ‘It is as consumers that the new rich of Asia have attracted an interest of almost cargo-cult proportions in the West. They constitute the new markets for Western products’ (1996b: 1; and Rappa, Reference Rappa2002: 2). After all, modernity, in a very direct sense, is increasingly about consumption practices, and consumption is a vital element of status, image construction and the everyday experience of class (Rappa, Reference Rappa2002: 2, 38, 196). Consumerism, or consumption also has political consequences and objectives in the context of what we increasingly refer to as ‘cultural politics’ or ‘identity politics’ (see Heryanto, Reference Heryanto and Pinches1999: 178–179; Young, Reference Young and Pinches1999: 57).
Defining the middle class, as many social scientists have found, is no easy matter. It is ‘a highly contested concept’ (Abdul Rahman Embong, Reference Abdul2002: 7; Kessler, Reference Kessler and Embong2001: 31–45). Hewison, for example, conceptualizes the middle class as a ‘residual class category’ (1996: 143), whilst there are those, like Kahn, who prefer the plural form ‘middle classes’ to reflect the considerable diversity and internal differentiation in the middle orders of society (Kahn, Reference Kahn1991: 50–56; 1996: 71–72; and see Ockey, Reference Ockey and Pinches1999: 230, 245–246). There are also political economists who address intra-class divisions by using the notion of ‘class fractions’, which to some degree map onto Kahn's multiple middle classes (Higgott and Robison, Reference Higgott and Robison1985; Rodan et al., Reference Garry, Hewison and Robison2001). Evers, on the other hand, has attempted to overcome this problem of the complexity and the rapidity with which new class formations have been emerging in Southeast Asia from the 1970s by developing the concept of ‘strategic groups’; some of the similarities between these groups, the ‘class fractions’ of neo-Marxist political economists and Kahn's middle classes should be noted (Reference Evers and Hans-Dieter1980: 247–261).
For Evers, these strategic groups are new collectivities of people which have begun to emerge in rapidly changing economic and political circumstances, but which are still divided by ethnic, kinship, patronage and community loyalties. However, in his view, they appear to be in the process of developing a sense of common interest and purpose, and coming together under political leaders to form pressure groups and secure an increasing share of societal resources. He identifies such new strategic groups as civil servants, teachers, independent professionals and (Chinese) businessmen. Interestingly, ‘Chinese businessmen’ is defined in occupational/economic and ethnic terms, while the others are occupational groupings whose members possess particular educational qualifications and skills and comprise constituents of what is usually referred to as a middle class (ibid.: 250). An important political trend for Evers in strategic group formation in the region is the rise of such groupings as independent professionals and civil servants (ibid.: 253), and it is precisely the important strategic grouping of salaried professionals and technicians, as part of the middle class, which we wish to focus on in this paper (see also Pinches, Reference Pinches and Pinches1999b: xi).
The middle class (or classes) therefore encompasses a range of constituents, and in Robison's and Goodman's comparative collection on the ‘new rich’, one gets the impression of a relatively high degree of indeterminateness and considerable internal diversity within the middle class, and its shading into other classes. In a later publication Robison refers to the middle class as ‘a vast and internally undifferentiated social category with differing sets of interests and relationships with other social and political forces’ (1998: 61), although we maintain that there are constituent groupings, as Evers demonstrates, which can be delineated in broad terms, even if their boundaries are not sharply demarcated. For example, more specifically Hewison designates middle class constituents as professionals and semi-professionals, bureaucrats in the public and private sectors, and the self-employed (the latter, in other schemes might be seen as elements of a petite bourgeoisie) (1996: 143; and Pinches, Reference Pinches and Pinches1999c: 41–43). Abdul Rahman Embong, in his detailed study of the new Malay middle class in Malaysia, in somewhat similar fashion, identifies ‘managers, professionals and administrators’ (2002: 1).
The problems of delineating the middle strata for Robison and Goodman are also compounded by lumping them together with the bourgeoisie (or capitalists) in an even more indeterminate category (which is clearly not a class) of ‘the new rich’, which, in turn, is ‘a diverse and fractured social force’; the concept is, they maintain, merely ‘a broad brushstroke’ (Robison and Goodman, Reference Pinches, Robison and Goodman1996b: 3, 5–7; Shamsul, Reference Shamsul and Pinches1999: 86–110). We consider that this conceptual device merely complicates any consideration of the middle class and we do not employ it in our analysis. Indeed, even Robison and Goodman make the point that there is a significant distinction to be made between the bourgeoisie, as owners of capital, and the ‘professional middle classes’ as ‘possessors of managerial and technical skills’ (ibid.: 5; but see Gainsborough, Reference Gainsborough2002). What is also clear to us is that their concept of the middle class is defined much more in terms of Weberian notions of market capacity, life-chances, employment and status, and not in terms of the Marxist preoccupation with the criterion of the ownership and non-ownership of the means of production (and see Pinches, Reference Pinches, Robison and Goodman1996: 123 and Hutchinson, Reference Hutchinson, Rodan, Hewison and Robison2001: 54–55). Furthermore, Pinches, in his later edited book on the ‘cultural construction’ of the Asian new rich, explicitly draws attention both to the problematical nature of the ‘new rich’ as a conceptual and analytical category, and also to the importance of more finely grained Weberian perspectives, and the need to embellish and reposition the political economy analyses of Robison and Goodman with considerations of self-identity, status and the experiences of class (1999c: 6–7). In other words, and in line with our interests in this paper, it is important to examine the interconnections between values, meanings, lifestyles and interpersonal conduct on the one hand, with political and economic processes on the other (and see Young, Reference Young and Pinches1999: 56).
Having drawn attention to the problem of the internal diversity of the middle class we should emphasize that there are certain common issues which tend to be of general concern to those whom we usually identify as of middle class backgrounds. These comprise a commitment to law and order; political competence, stability and integrity; educational provision, qualifications and merit; the rights of citizenship; and the importance of private property and individual initiative (Robison and Goodman, Reference Pinches, Robison and Goodman1996b: 2). Abdul Rahman Embong also suggests that members of the middle class are differentiated from others ‘because of their relatively superior cultural and organizational assets not possessed by those from the working class’; in other words, they ‘enjoy a special position because they exercise some autonomy’ and they have ‘greater market capacity in performing their tasks’ (2002: 10). With their possession of ‘cultural capital’, the middle class has also been associated with the emergence of a civil society and with demands for more representative political institutions (Hewison, Reference Hewison, Robison and Goodman1996: 137–138). Indeed, the literature on the middle class is often intertwined with the increasing social science interest over the last fifteen years or so in issues of civil society, political opposition, democratization and globalization in what were centralized, authoritarian regimes in the developing world (see, for example, Rodan, Reference Garry1996a; Abdul Rahman Embong, Reference Abdul2001a; Crouch, Reference Crouch and Embong2001; Rivera, Reference Rivera and Embong2001; Saravanamuttu, Reference Saravanamuttu and Embong2001; Koh, Reference David2001a; Loh Kok Wah and Öjendal, Reference Loh Kok Wah and Öjendal2005).
However, the interest of middle class elements in ensuring law and order, political stability and material prosperity has also, at times, led to their support for authoritarianism, as the relationship between the state and the middle class demonstrates in the case of Singapore, a predominantly middle class yet authoritarian state (Robison and Goodman, Reference Pinches, Robison and Goodman1996b: 7–8; and also Abdul Rahman Embong, Reference Abdul2002: 149, 160–161; Hewison, Reference Hewison, Robison and Goodman1996: 154–155; Oehlars, Reference Oehlers and Embong2001: 192–207; Pinches, Reference Pinches, Robison and Goodman1996: 123; Rodan, Reference Pinches, Robison and Goodman1996b: 32–39; Robison, Reference Robison, Schmidt, Hersh and Fold1998: 61, 67–68, 73). In addition, civil society itself can be undemocratic; it is certainly socio-economically unequal, and, although its representatives might espouse egalitarian principles and the rights of individuals, it has emerged significantly in Southeast Asia from political authoritarianism and state intervention (see Abdul Rahman Embong, Reference Abdul2002: 14–16 and Kahn, Reference Kahn1991 on the middle class as a partially or wholly state-generated social phenomenon). What is more, members of the middle class or classes are frequently not ‘conscious and cohesive agents of social and political change’ (Robison, Reference Robison, Schmidt, Hersh and Fold1998: 63; Rodan, Reference Pinches and Rodan1996c: xi--xii). In other words, they tend to be products rather than agents of ‘social and economic dynamics’ (Robison, Reference Robison, Schmidt, Hersh and Fold1998: 73).
This consideration is particularly important in any examination of the middle class or constituents of the middle class in a changing yet still centralized socialist system like Vietnam where many members of the emerging middle class there owe their position to state provision of such things as education and employment in the state sector (Gainsborough, Reference Gainsborough2002: 701, 707; Reference Gainsborough2005a; Reference Gainsborough2005b). Additionally, positions of political and administrative power in the local and central political apparatus frequently enable Vietnamese state officials and entrepreneurs who have links with senior bureaucrats and politicians to obtain and accumulate wealth (Koh, Reference David2001b; Luong, Reference David and Taylor2003; Taylor, Reference Taylor and Taylor2004: 15). Indeed, this phenomenon of state-led modernization in Vietnam would appear to have created a middle class, the majority of whose members currently do share a set of interests and political commitments, which are closely associated with the government. Nevertheless, this relationship with the state is also characteristic of other countries in Southeast Asia, although the tensions between dependence on the generosity of the state, and also, at times, the adoption of critical attitudes towards it, are more acute in some countries, like Malaysia and Thailand, than others, like Singapore (Embong; Reference Abdul and Embong2001c, Kessler, Reference Kessler and Embong2001).
Overall then the middle class is clearly not really a social class at all in any economic or political sense; it is much more a category comprised of several occupational groupings, which may identify with one another on particular social, economic and political issues, but, depending on circumstances, may also adopt different positions, orientations and interests and ally with non-middle class elements (Jumbala and Banpasirichote, Reference Jumbala, Chantana and Embong2001: 289). Pinches, with reference to the Philippines, refers to ‘middle forces’ there, characterized by ambiguity and ‘a political orientation that lies somewhere between the right and the left’ (1996: 123). The middle class of managers, professionals, technicians and administrators also shades into the petite bourgeoisie (sometimes referred to as the ‘old middle class’), the bourgeoisie, as in concepts of the ‘new rich’, and those who are ‘routine non-manual employees in administration and commerce, sales personnel, and other rank-and-file service workers’ (sometimes referred to as the ‘marginal middle class’) (Abdul Rahman Embong, Reference Abdul2002: 10; and 2001c: 90). One of the major issues we face in comprehending social classes in a situation in which ‘cultural capital’ becomes a key criterion of class identity, and cultural differentiation a key process in class formation, is that these do not generate discrete classes at all, but rather ‘a plethora or matrix of socio-cultural “strata”’ (Kahn, Reference Kahn, Schmidt, Hersh and Fold1998: 89).
Returning to Evers, perhaps his dynamic notion of ‘strategic groups’ and classes in formation might help address these definitional problems with regard to a middle class, elements of which, like salaried professionals, may, depending on circumstances, ally with each other and other members of the middle class, or alternatively with members of the ‘upper classes’ or ‘lower classes’. In the developing societies of Southeast Asia there is considerable social mobility, and with recent globalization, industrialization and modernization, social classes, as Evers proposes, are still fluid. More generally, class is experienced and lived on a day-to-day basis, and, as Kessler proposes, is ‘contingent, emergent, fluctuating’ and these collective identities are ‘always problematic, incomplete and unfinished’ (Reference Kessler and Embong2002: 203, 205; 2001: 33–35). In other words, a major research question which we need to address concerns the characteristics and content of the various cultural constructions or identities of those whom we commonly refer to as middle class, and how boundaries are drawn between and within the middle class. A starting point is to build up a picture of the constituents of middle classness, and, in this paper, we focus on salaried professionals and technicians.
Vietnam and Doi Moi
Since the mid-1970s, following the reunification of the northern and southern parts of the country, Vietnam has been under the continuous rule of the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) and remains firmly a socialist and one-party state. From the second half of the 1980s when the centrally planned economy was literally on the verge of bankruptcy, the VCP initiated a programme of economic renovation called doi moi, which aimed at creating, under the political umbrella of the socialist state, a market-oriented economy, allowing for a multi-sector economy, de-collectivization, private ownership, and liberalized and increased foreign trade and investment (Beresford, Reference Beresford, Rodan, Hewison and Robison2001; Drummond and Thomas, Reference Thomas, Drummond and Thomas2003; Owen et al., Reference Norman2005: 476–480). Although doi moi was introduced in 1986, it was not until the early 1990s when a combination of internal and external factors (for example, the promulgation of a new Law on Foreign Investment in 1987, the termination of aid and trade flows from the Eastern European bloc in 1989, and the conclusion of the Peace Accord with Cambodia in 1991), resulted in the acceleration of economic and structural reforms. Since then doi moi has brought about not only fundamental transformations of the economy and sustained growth, but also profound social, cultural, and, to a much less extent, political changes (Kolko, Reference Kolko1997; World Bank, 1999; Luong, 2003; Gainsborough, Reference Gainsborough2005a, Reference Gainsborough2005b).
One of the consequences of doi moi in Vietnam has been increasing social inequality and particularly the widening wealth gap between rich and poor, and urban and rural communities, which is not only of grave concern for the Vietnamese government and development agencies (see, for example, World Bank, 1995, 1999, 2000), but has also attracted a great deal of attention in the academic literature (see, for example, Beresford and McFarlane, Reference Beresford and McFarlane1995; Luong and Unger, Reference Luong and Jonathan1998; Trinh Duy Luan, Reference Trinh and Thanh2000; Luong, 2003; Taylor, Reference Taylor and Taylor2004). As the state abolished the subsidy system (bao cap), which used to provide for everything from education and employment to healthcare, housing, holidays and many other social benefits in order to move in the direction of a free market, unemployment and poverty have risen significantly. Meanwhile, there is ample evidence of dynamic groups and individuals who possess knowledge, skills, experience, and social connections and who have seized opportunities offered by economic development to become affluent, causing an ever widening disparity between rich and poor, a disparity which was much less marked under pre-reform socialism (Trinh Duy Luan, Reference Trinh and Thanh2000: 42). Especially in urban areas, the difference in income and wealth between rich and poor has been observed as ‘particularly conspicuous’ (Trinh Duy Luan, Reference Trinh1993; Bresnan, Reference Bresnan, Morley and Nishihara1997: 77; Do Thien Kinh et al., Reference Do Thien, Hauton, Haughton and Phong2001).
With this deepening inequality in the post-reform era, researchers are becoming increasingly aware of the consequential link between socio-economic inequality and social class divisions—a phenomenon often referred to in Vietnamese discourse as ‘social stratification’ (phan tang xa hoi). Social stratification in post-reform Vietnam is expressed in terms of differences in income, wealth, and consumption among social groups, but also in terms of differences in social, cultural and political capital (Trinh Duy Luan, Reference Trinh and Thanh2000; Koh, 2004; Kim, Reference Kim and Taylor2004). In other words, relative egalitarianism—in general, a culturally homogeneous and egalitarian working class of government officials and state-enterprise workers with fairly similar expectations and lifestyles—has been undermined in post-doi moi Vietnam. Instead, the market economy has created ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ together with social class divisions in this socialist state.
In this paper, although it is not our intention to examine social differentiation in Vietnamese society in detail, it is important to note that there is a consensus about the existence of what is essentially a middle class in urban Vietnam. Whilst urban poverty has become a ‘pressing problem’, particularly in large cities such as Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi and Hai Phong (World Bank, 1999; Nguyen Huu Minh and Nguyen Xuan Mai, Reference Nguyen, Nguyen, Nghia, Duong and Quang Vinh2005: 20), there has emerged ‘the new urban rich’ who are members of three advantaged groupings: people in positions of administrative power, people who control economic capital, and people with education, experience, and employable skills (Trinh Duy Luan, Reference Trinh1993; Bresnan, Reference Bresnan, Morley and Nishihara1997: 77). Although we recognize that these groupings can often overlap, as Koh, for example, observes that most government officials have sources of income other than their official salary and many have subsequently become wealthy and possess economic capital (2001b: 283), the subject of our research falls into the third grouping. Increasingly, urban professionals see themselves as successful in utilizing human capital instead of political power; and in so doing, bringing to Vietnam a ‘new ethos of transnational modernity’ (Taylor, Reference Taylor and Taylor2004: 16). Jørgensen has also noted that economic renovation has ‘had a tremendous effect on social development and an urban middle class [has] emerged with a lifestyle closer to the global urban middle class than to their fellow citizens in the countryside’ (Reference Jørgensen, Wah and Öjendal2005: 318). In particular, there has been a substantial increase in the desire for and purchase of modern consumer goods (Thomas and Drummond, Reference Thomas, Drummond, Drummond and Thomas2003: 1–3).
Immediately after doi moi was introduced and throughout the 1990s, there was a relatively large exodus of personnel from the state sector to the non-state sector due to state ‘managerial apparatus streamlining’ (Fforde, Reference Fforde1996: 40–41, 2003: 41, 46; Boothroyd and Pham, Reference Boothroyd and Pham2000: 23), but they were also in search of new entrepreneurial opportunities opened up by the reforms. In fact, it is estimated that more than 70 per cent of those people who left the state sector during the reorganization either created their own enterprises or were employed by business owners (Le and Rondinelli, Reference Le Ngoc and Dennis1993: 9). In recent years therefore, there has been evidence of growth in the private sector, which has also been supported by the government following the enactment in 2000 of the 1999 Enterprise Law (Glofcheski, Reference Glofcheski2001; Tenev et al., Reference Tenev, Carlier, Chaudry and Nguyen2003; Hansen et al., Reference Hansen, John and Finn2004). This growth, however, has been heavily concentrated in large cities, with Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City providing the home to 40 per cent of all Vietnamese private companies (Steer and Taussig, Reference Steer and Markus2002). In addition, and in spite of this shift in employment into the private sector, much of the economic activity in Vietnam is still located in the state sector, and the state is still a major employer, providing a greater number of jobs than any other single sector (Nguyen, Reference Nguyen2002). Private sector businesses are also ‘still very reliant on the state for licenses, contracts, access to capital and land, and very often, protection’ (Gainsborough, Reference Gainsborough2002: 700; Fforde, Reference Fforde, Drummond and Thomas2003: 37). At the provincial level, for example, ‘not only are state institutions at the heart of regulating economic activity but also they are active participants in economic activity through the running of state and private firms’ (Gainsborough, Reference Gainsborough2005a: 11). Furthermore, Gainsborough observed in 2003 that ‘relations between the equitised firm and the state continued to be close, with the state maintaining considerable inspection and control rights’ (2005b: 33).
In his discussion of the potential political role of social classes in processes of democratization, Gainsborough focuses on five main classes in post-reform Vietnam; these comprise large landowners, the peasantry and rural workers, the urban working class, the bourgeoisie or entrepreneurs, and the salaried and middle classes, which comprise professional state employees in the bureaucracy and state enterprises, and in foreign companies (2002: 694–707). His main conclusion, which is borne out by our data on middle class youth, is that the middle class is still closely connected to and dependent on the Vietnamese state and is not an independent force for political change, although there are some signs that elements of the middle class in large cities are exercising a degree of discretion outside of government control or action (Kerkvliet, Reference Kerkvliet2001: 263–269; Thomas, Reference Thomas, Drummond and Thomas2003: 170–188; Nguyen, Reference Nguyen2005; and see Loh Kok Wah, Reference Loh Kok Wah, Loh Kok Wah and Öjendal2005: 37).
Given this close connection between the middle class and the state, Fforde suggests that a typical middle class household profile in the 1990s was for the father to work in the state bureaucracy, the mother probably in trade but moving into other areas of work as market opportunities became available, and their children in both public and private sector employment. Emphasis is placed on consumption and the acquisition of status goods rather than on involvement in political activities. In Hanoi, for example, there has been ‘a high stress upon perceived high-quality consumer durables’, and the city's consumers seem to be much more status-conscious than those in Ho Chi Minh City, especially in such things as the motor-cycle market (Fforde, Reference Fforde, Drummond and Thomas2003: 36, 50). Furthermore, in the characterization of a communist party cadre in big cities such as Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi the middle class are ‘intellectuals, those who are well-educated and have a big monthly income, . . . [t]hey have property, know at least one foreign language and can use the Internet. They may have a house or villa in the suburbs or neighboring provinces. As they have a car, their house must have a garage’ (quoted in Escobar Reference Escobar2003: online). More generally, not only have consumer items become much more freely available, particularly imported ones, but they are ‘being taken up as markers of success’ (Thomas and Drummond, Reference Drummond and Mandy2003: 2). It is also very markedly a ‘more affluent [urban] youth market. . .hungry for products, but always with a Vietnamese flavour’ (ibid.: 3). But, given that the growth in the economy has been a very recent phenomenon and that Vietnam is still in the process of moving out of a period of great economic difficulty under centralized planning from the 1980s, the general level of incomes of the Vietnamese middle class is considerably lower than that in such neighbouring countries as Thailand and Malaysia and the size of the middle class smaller (Fforde, Reference Fforde, Drummond and Thomas2003: 51). This is balanced to some extent by the more modest costs of domestic help, which is becoming a significant element of middle class lifestyles, and basic household expenses such as food and clothing.
The Survey Data
In the Survey Assessment of Vietnamese Youth interviewees were asked to complete a questionnaire which included two parts: a face-to-face interview and a self-administered anonymous questionnaire which contained sensitive questions and which interviewees completed in private. Young interviewees (aged 14–25) in the SAVY sample were selected nationwide from the sub-sample of 45,000 households in 42 provinces in the 2002 Vietnam Living Standards Survey. The probability proportional to size method was used to maintain demographic representativeness of the provinces, whilst the two largest cities (Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City) were over-sampled in order to provide for increased statistical power in that segment of the total population of youth. Young people were then invited to a central location, away from their homes, for interview, and out of the 7,584 people who agreed to go to the interview location, no one refused to answer the questions or fill in the self-completed part of the survey. An interviewer of the same sex, sitting side-by-side, interviewed young people; the interviewer also gave clear instructions on how to fill in the self-completed questionnaire before handing it over to the respondent. A total of 150 interviewers were trained for data collection. (For more information on sampling and survey method, see SAVY Report, 2005: 19–22). Given its sample size and representativeness, the SAVY clearly provides nationally representative baseline data from which we can begin to draw insights into areas and issues concerning young people's lives, perceptions, attitudes, behaviour, and aspirations for the future. This paper is among the attempts over the coming years to analyze the body of data, which will contribute not only to our knowledge of young people, but also to our broader understanding of contemporary Vietnamese society.
Family and Educational Background
The young people in our survey were born in the late 1970s and early 1980s just prior to the introduction of the economic reforms and were therefore following their education and coming of age when the country was undergoing the process of renovation and opening up to the outside world, and the economy was expanding. Most of their parents’ generation, however, would have been born and brought up in the turbulent times of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s when the modern Vietnamese nation was in process of formation, when the competing ideologies of socialism and American-backed capitalism were vying for prominence, and when state socialism, the public sector and centralized planning and development were particularly strong in the northern part of the country.
More generally in Southeast Asia the middle class is seen as a relatively new phenomenon. Abdul Rahman Embong suggests that, ‘in East and Southeast Asia, the appearance of the new middle class is a fairly recent phenomenon, perhaps only one generation old’ (ibid.: 61), and, in the case of Malay society, for example, he states that, in the 1960s and 1970s, it was still ‘predominantly rural and agricultural’, and the Malaysian middle class really only began to expand with the introduction of state-led modernization and export-oriented industrialization from the 1970s (2002: 3, 61–71). In his Malay sample of 284 respondents about one-third indicated that their fathers had come from the ‘peasant and labouring classes’ (ibid.: 63). Even more striking was that most members of this new class came from ‘humble class backgrounds and large families’ and their parents ‘had experienced little or no education’ (ibid.: 69).
Interestingly, and in contrast to the Malay case and perhaps other cases in Southeast Asia, our Vietnamese sample demonstrates a more marked continuity in the educational and socio-economic backgrounds of our young professional respondents and their parents. However, we argue that while the emphasis on education is a long-established tradition, the continuity in educational background between the senior and junior generations of the middle class in the case of Vietnamese society is a relatively recent phenomenon that emerged only after the introduction of economic reform. In contemporary Vietnamese history up until the end of the socialist period, education had been seen more as a means to ascend the class ladder than as a means to retain one's position on it. In pre-colonial ‘feudal’ Vietnam, education and ultimately success in the mandarin examinations meant a great deal more than scholarly success, as it enabled people to leave ‘the ranks of the people to enter the mandarin “caste”’ (Nguyen Khac Vien, Reference Nguyen, Yarr, Werner and Tran1974: 26). In effect, education made it possible for people to move from the ‘subject’ class to the ‘ruling’ class.Footnote 1 During the French colonial period (1883–1954), education continued to be the route to higher social status for many people. By this time, Vietnamese social structure underwent significant changes with new social classes ‘unknown in pre-colonial Vietnam’ emerging, including the bourgeoisie and the petite bourgeoisie (Buttinger, Reference Buttinger1967: 160). Also, people in cities could engage increasingly in a range of new middle class occupations such as doctors, pharmacists, lawyers, interpreters, clerks, secretaries, technicians, schoolteachers, and journalists, and together they formed a class of educated professionals. Study and education was widely perceived as the only route to success and social status, so much so that all ‘young people who obtained an education became a success. They all gained some position of status, never mind how, sufficient to win the respect of the general public. . . . It is recognized that for making one's way in this world it could not be otherwise’ (Tran Trong Kim, 1929, quoted in Jamieson, Reference Jamieson1993: 95). Under socialism (1954–1986), many young men and women, who passed university entrance examinations with high results and had the right political credentials, were sent to universities across the communist world, and many of the students returning from studying in Eastern Europe and other socialist countries went on to hold key positions in the government. In other words, during this socialist time when one's class standing was ascertained by the class background of their parents and grandparents and to have a ‘pure’ (trong sach) class standing frequently meant to have both parents being poor peasants or workers and belonging to the proletariat, it was still largely through education and study that many people achieved positions of political power and status. They subsequently went on to form a political elite who also possess wealth and who currently constitute part of the middle class in Vietnam.
Our survey data, based on a sample of young professionals, indicate relative success in the effort to sustain one's class position and to pass on to youth the advantages enjoyed by their parents - advantages which were provided principally by the state through education and employment. Clearly education is still a route to social mobility for some, but it is also increasingly a means to consolidate one's position in the middle class. As many as 72 per cent of our urban professional interviewees reported that their father had attained education above higher secondary school level (that is, university graduate and post-graduate levels) whilst 59 per cent stated that their mothers had attained education above higher secondary level. In the four larger cities, the percentage of youths with educated parents is even higher: 76 per cent of fathers with educational qualifications above higher secondary level in large cities as against 65 per cent in smaller urban centres and 66 per cent of mothers in large cities versus 49 per cent in smaller urban centres. Linking our findings with Gainsborough's observation that many members of the business elite are serving or former state officials, or are the children of the political elite (2002: 700), we note that the making of the middle class in post-reform Vietnam is characterized by a marked continuity both in educational and political backgrounds between the senior and junior generations as well as by a strong linkage with the state.
Underlining further this post-doi moi phenomenon of continuity in the educational and socio-economic backgrounds of our young professional respondents and their parents, an overwhelming majority of interviewees (81 per cent) reported that their fathers worked or had worked as either professionals or highly skilled technicians (85 per cent in the four larger cities and 76 per cent in smaller urban centres) whilst 68 per cent indicated that their mothers worked as professionals and technicians (70 per cent in the larger cities and 64 per cent in smaller urban centres). Interviewees also came from very stable family backgrounds in that only 1 per cent in the smaller urban centres reported that their parents had divorced while 3 per cent of young people in the large cities had parents who had separated.
In our sample none of the interviewees were from a poor household and only eight per cent of all respondents lived in households with average income (level of prosperity was determined by the size of the household dwelling, the possession of certain status goods such as electrical equipment and white goods, motorbikes, telephones and computers, and facilities such as electricity and piped water). As many as 96 per cent of young interviewees from the four large cities lived in high income households while this figure was 10 per cent lower in smaller urban centres.
Employment and Occupational Status
Other interesting characteristics are the noticeable shift in employment patterns from the state to the private sector, but a continuing close relationship between parental occupation, educational attainment and state sector employment. 44 per cent of all interviewees worked in the state sector whilst 56 per cent worked in the non-state sector. The proportion of private sector employees would obviously have been very low in the pre-reform period and among their parents' generation. However, from the recent survey data we find that young people tended to work in the state sector if their fathers were professionals: 51 per cent of those whose fathers were salaried professionals worked in the state sector while only 44 per cent of those whose fathers were technicians and one third of those whose fathers were unskilled workers worked in the state sector. The same tendency was found for mothers: 59 per cent, 41 per cent and 32 per cent respectively.
This continuity in state employment between the generations can also be explained in part by the strong tendency for young people to remain under parental influence when making their employment decisions. Interviewees from the qualitative study undertaken between 1999–2002 by Nguyen (Reference Nguyen2003) cited the expectations of their senior relatives, and most directly of their parents, as an important reason for their choice of employment in the state sector. For many parents, the notion of employment has remained constant conforming to the pre-doi moi socialist ideal of work for the state. ‘If you work outside of the state, no matter how many years you've been working, your years of experience are insignificant,’ explained a 72-year-old father whose son worked for a government ministry. ‘At the end of the day, you will find yourself in a position of no status, having no power, and being guaranteed no social security at all. That is why I got my son into state employment.’ In this ethnographic study, out of the 26 interviewees working for the state sector, as many as 15 of them confirmed that they were in their present jobs for reasons directly related to their parents’ advice, wishes, influence or pressure. This is by far the highest proportion of parent-related decisions compared to sample results from all other employment sectors where the majority of interviewees confirmed that they made their own decision to work outside the state sector.
There is also a link between the level of educational attainment of the father and the likelihood of the youth working in the state sector: 48 per cent of interviewees whose fathers had university education worked in the state sector; this percentage is lower for interviewees whose fathers attained higher secondary education (40 per cent) and lower secondary education (38.5 per cent). The same linkage holds for the mother's level of educational attainment: 55 per cent, 41 per cent and 44 per cent respectively.
There is also a significant difference in the level of educational attainment between interviewees working in the state sector and those in the private sector. As many as 50 per cent of interviewees who worked in the state sector had attained education at university or higher levels, while only 30 per cent in the private sector had attended university. From a different perspective, we observe a similar trend that only 37 per cent of interviewees with secondary education worked in the state sector while the remaining 63 per cent with secondary education worked in the non-state sector. At the same time, among interviewees with university or higher education, 57.5 per cent worked in the state sector (whilst 42.5 per cent worked in the non-state sector).
Our qualitative data further substantiate the survey findings that the state sector is attractive to young graduates, who also tend to aspire to pursue their education even further, particularly overseas postgraduate training, precisely because it offers opportunities to gain scholarships to study abroad (Nguyen, Reference Nguyen2003). There is a broad consensus in Vietnam that qualifications gained abroad are passports to enable one to participate in the country's process of economic integration into the wider capitalist world. However, high tuition fees and the general cost of living overseas have made this a dream hard to realize for the majority of Vietnamese youths. For them, one of the few options available is to secure employment in state and government offices and then apply for the various scholarship schemes available. The open-door policy has enhanced and broadened cooperative relations between numerous Vietnamese governmental institutions and many other countries. In such a context, as part of foreign cooperative programmes and aid agreements, an ever-increasing number of scholarships has been given to students from Vietnam to follow training courses overseas. During the 1990s some 14,000 people were granted such scholarships to study abroad. In addition, the Vietnamese government has been using its own budget to send 350 ‘young scientists’ annually to study overseas in the period 1999–2005 (Vietnam News, 1 September 1999). These scholarships are, however, restricted to employees on the state payroll (Vietnam Economic Times, 10 May 2001). Therefore, to many young professionals, employment in the state sector with a possible scholarship opportunity has become a viable path towards realizing their dream of further education abroad.
In our survey data the majority (88 per cent) of interviewees stated that they were happy with their then employment, and this percentage was the same for both interviewees in the large cities and those in smaller urban centres. However, there is a modest difference in levels of job satisfaction when comparing the state with the non-state sector; up to 91 per cent of all interviewees working in the state sector were content with their job while this figure was 86 per cent for those working in the non-state sector. Nevertheless, the middle class is characterized by significant job mobility and 23 per cent of all interviewees reported that they were also looking for new employment with a rather higher percentage in the large cities (27 per cent) looking for a different job as compared to those in the smaller urban centres (14.5 per cent). In line with the above-mentioned observation on the higher degree of job satisfaction for interviewees working in the state sector, as many as 34 per cent of interviewees working in the private sector were looking to change jobs while only 8 per cent working in the state sector were seeking to move.
The importance of state sector employment and the satisfaction derived from it are underlined by what our young respondents in Hanoi stated in in-depth interviews; in their view state employment still offers its traditional attraction of stability, lifetime job security and social benefits (Nguyen, Reference Nguyen2003). Nam (male interviewee), for example, worked for a state-owned conglomerate specializing in telecommunication technology:
Working for the state you don't have to worry about losing your job or the possibility of the organization being dissolved. Over the [1997–98 Asian] economic crisis a lot of my friends working for foreign companies lost their jobs as the companies withdrew from the country, so at the end of the day they'd find themselves starting all over again from scratch. [At the] end of the day, it is better to work for the state. . . not to mention the many opportunities to be promoted to important and higher positions in the government.
Hung (male interviewee) worked for a large state-run corporation and shared the view that generally the state was a far better employer:
State employment is definitely a good thing, especially when you decide to follow the path of state management. State employment brings you not only more social security and more benefits, but it also offers you a firm foothold in the government system for your future promotion and career development. Your career path would then be more ‘perfect’ and ‘standardized’.
Through in-depth interviews with urban young professionals it became clear that the concept of stability and job security was not only limited to the notion of not facing the threat of losing one's job, but also seemed to encompass career expectations as well. Another nuance of ‘security’ here has something to do with the predictability and certainty of one's career path. However, this is not a new aspect of ‘stability’ in the state sector, because state employees have always been able to predict their next step up on the career ladder.
Leisure Pursuits and Behaviour
The educated middle classes are cultural consumers, they have resources to spend on leisure activities and they are usually interested in current affairs and in securing information. However, as Abdul Rahman Embong suggests in the case of the Malay middle class, consumerism and the desire for status goods may take precedence over the development of a ‘strong intellectual and cultural tradition’ with ‘strong reading habits and sophisticated cultural tastes’ (2002: 30). This is likely to be the case even more markedly among younger members of the middle class and there seems to be certain activities which do not differentiate them particularly strongly from the lower classes (ibid.: 100).
In general, most young people, from whatever social background, watch television. In the survey data only 3 per cent of all interviewees stated that they never watched television and up to 83 per cent of interviewees reported watching television every day or nearly every day during the month preceding the survey. In the large cities 79 per cent of interviewees watched television every day or nearly every day while 89 per cent of all interviewees in smaller urban centres reported doing so. Interviewees stated that they were most interested in news programmes (41.6 per cent), and then movies (22 per cent) and finally music programmes (19 per cent). Interestingly, fewer interviewees in the large cities (37 per cent) watched news programmes in comparison to 49 per cent in smaller urban centres. On the other hand, interviewees in the large cities tended to watch movies and music programmes more often than interviewees in smaller urban centres (26 per cent as against 16 per cent for movies and 21 per cent as against 14.5 per cent for music programmes).
In total, 78 per cent of all interviewees reported reading newspapers and magazines every day or nearly every day during the month preceding the survey, although a very small minority (3 per cent of all interviewees) reported not having read any newspapers or magazines during that month. As one would expect in the large cities, more people read newspapers and magazines regularly (82 per cent as against 72 per cent in smaller urban centres). With no significant difference between the large cities and the smaller urban centres, favourite reading materials were reported to be the weekly Phu Nu Viet Nam [The Vietnamese Woman] (26 per cent), the daily Tuoi Tre [Youth Newspaper] (11.5 per cent), The Thao [Sports] (10.6 per cent), and Tap Chi An Ninh The Gioi [World Security Magazine] (9 per cent). These publications are more popular among young readers than, for example, the daily Nhan Dan [the People] and the Tap Chi Cong San [The Communist Magazine]Footnote 2 in that they report both local and international news, sports, and celebrity gossip, enabling the reader to connect to the outside world, as well as often testing the limits of censorship by carrying out press investigations and reporting sensitive social and political issues. This indicates that newspapers and magazines are both a means of entertainment and a source of news and information for young urban professionals.
Just over half of all interviewees said that they had watched a video or a DVD during the month preceding the survey. 29 per cent of all urban interviewees also reported going to a movie theatre during the month immediately preceding the survey. This is a reasonably sizeable percentage during the short period of one month. In the large cities, a significantly higher number of interviewees went to a movie theatre as compared to those from the smaller urban centres (39 per cent as against 14.5 per cent), and nearly 2 per cent of interviewees in the large cities went to a movie theatre more than three times during the month while none did so in smaller urban centres.
A majority of urban interviewees (71 per cent) used the Internet. In the large cities the numbers are significantly higher (78 per cent) than in the smaller urban centres (58 per cent). The amount of time spent on the Internet also differs between the large cities and smaller urban centres. Up to 55 per cent of interviewees in the four large cities had used the Internet for more than eleven hours during the month preceding the survey while only 37.5 per cent of interviewees in smaller urban centres did so. These figures partly reflect the differences in the availability of communication infrastructures between different urban centres, and partly the difference in economic status between the large cities and smaller urban centres, since the Internet is relatively costly. Data from our in-depth interviews in fact revealed that in large cities such as Hanoi, interviewees see the frequent use of the Internet as a marker of socio-economic status and level of educational attainment. Some university-educated interviewees in Hanoi chose to make friends, socialise, and date over the Internet, because they see themselves as belonging to a rather ‘exclusive club’ of people who are educated and computer literate, who can afford the high cost of technology and telecommunications, and who can ‘hang out’ both globally and locally (Nguyen, Reference Nguyen2003).
Although the above survey findings do not describe the full range of leisure pursuits, they indicate media consumption trends among Vietnamese urban middle class youth, particularly the popularity of the ‘new’ media, and the use of such media for entertainment and status purposes. According to a 2002 survey, most of the customers at the country's estimated 5,000 Internet cafes were students between the ages of 14 and 24 (Associated Press, 3 February 2003). In Vietnam where the Internet was first introduced in 1997 the number of Internet users has risen from around 190,000 in 1999 to 1.9 million in 2002, making the country's telecommunications industry the second-fastest-growing in the world after China (Economist Intelligence Unit, 2003: 23).
Self-perceptions and Future Expectations
In general Vietnamese people enjoy a high level of happiness and life satisfaction. In the 2001 World Value Survey, as many as 91 percent of Vietnamese respondents said they were very happy or quite happy with their situation, with about two-thirds considering themselves as satisfied with life overall. These statistics place the Vietnamese far above most of Eastern Europe and on a par with China, Mexico, Chile and Spain (Dalton and Ong, Reference Dalton and Nhu-Ngoc2001). They also reflect a correlation with the country's overall economic development.
Reflecting this general high level of life satisfaction, our data of the educated professionals further indicate that educated young people of middle class backgrounds, with good jobs, relatively high income and generally sound prospects for the future are even more likely to have a more positive attitude about themselves and their abilities than those who are struggling to make ends meet. In the SAVY survey there was also a set of questions about the perceptions which individuals had of themselves, particularly their levels of self-confidence and optimism. Nearly 97 per cent of all urban interviewees stated ‘I believe I can do what others do’. In the family, young people tended to be confident. Up to 98 per cent of all interviewees agreed totally or partially with the statement ‘I think I am valuable to my family’ (in economic terms and as an asset). A majority of interviewees (86.5 per cent) were of the view that economic conditions would be better in Vietnam in the next three years; 11 per cent thought that they would remain the same. A staggering 99 per cent agreed (totally: 86 per cent, or partially: 13 per cent) with the statement that they would have a happy family in the future, agreed completely or partially that they would have a job that they liked, and that they would have an opportunity to do what they wanted to do. 98 per cent agreed (completely: 67 per cent, or partially: 31 per cent) with the statement that they would have a good income so that they could live comfortably.
Their aspirations for the future were very specific and directly related to their individual lifestyle and career. At the top of the list was their aspirations for ‘employment and career’ (chosen by 47 per cent of interviewees), followed by ‘stable income’ (26 per cent), ‘happiness in general’ (13 per cent), and ‘having a family/becoming parents’ (10 per cent). It is interesting to note that a greater number of people in the large cities aspired to having a family or having happiness in general while a greater number in smaller cities and towns wanted appropriate employment or a successful career. All interviewees said that their life would improve in the future; 25 per cent thought that their life would be significantly better while 68 per cent said that it would be better.
Conclusions
We are depressingly short of studies which bring together the preoccupations of government in Southeast Asia with the interests and behaviour of young people generally and the growing importance of young, consumer-oriented people from middle class backgrounds. Vietnam, given its recent emergence from a centralized planning regime to one which has attempted to embrace the market place, is an especially interesting case, and, in our planned comparative, cross-national study, should enable us to say something useful and instructive about identity formation and the relationships between consumption and political behaviour in different socio-cultural, historical, political and economic contexts.
The survey data which we have available, though imperfect, helps us begin to paint a social portrait of the emerging and expanding young middle class in Vietnam and to confirm that it displays many of the characteristics of the middle class everywhere—a firm interest in and commitment to education, an orientation to consumption and to accessing news and information, aspirations to improve and develop in personal and career terms, and a more general belief and confidence in their abilities and prospects.
We are unable from these data to offer any comment on young middle class attitudes to government and politics and involvement in the political process. Impressionistically, the political dimension of middle classness in Vietnam seems currently to be relatively modest, and the evidence that is available suggests a greater interest in consumption, leisure activities, accessing information and news, and the maintenance and achievement of social status. These elements along with educational qualifications, income level, occupation and career aspirations seem to be what mark out professional middle class identities in Vietnam. At the moment, and given, the close relationships between salaried professionals and the state, particularly in terms of employment and educational provision, there does not seem to be a significant political identity emerging among middle class Vietnamese or an interest in mobilizing political resources, although there is some evidence of involvement in topical issues which could lead to criticism of the government position and policy (Kerkvliet, Reference Kerkvliet2001: Thomas, Reference Thomas2001).
To date this has not led to what one can see as a robust civil society in Vietnam, and, in his study of two Vietnamese border provinces, Gainsborough concludes that ‘there is even less evidence of nascent civil society-type activity compared with what one observes in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City’ (2005a: 25; and see Fforde, Reference Fforde2004). Kerkvliet too suggests that, although there has been some withdrawal of the state, particularly from the economy, its institutions ‘still, despite pressures from within and outside them, allow citizens only a little room to establish their own organizations in order to speak and act publicly on important issues. Hence, Vietnamese NGOs and other signs of civil society have only recently begun to emerge’ (2001: 269). Therefore, with regard to Evers’ concept of ‘strategic groups’ it seems that salaried professionals in Vietnam are taking on a certain identity in economic terms and in their command of human capital and access to economic resources, but not in terms of intervention in the political sphere and of forging a political identity which separates them from other social classes.
One very significant finding which emerged from the survey data and the qualitative field research was the continuity in employment and education between the current generation and its predecessor in relation to the state. This suggests, not unsurprisingly, that the state in Vietnam still plays an inordinately important role in moulding the social class structure. It does this because of its role in educational provision and as a provider of scholarships for further study abroad, as an employer of salaried professionals, and as a significant player and arbiter in the private sector. The influence of parents on their children, which demonstrates socio-cultural continuities with the past, and the continuing respect which children show to their parents and to the senior generation in general, also help explain the strong connection between the current employment of professionals and their educational background, and that of their parents. Even in a time of rapid social and economic transformation, the state, in its ability to offer security of employment and career paths and enhance job satisfaction, has managed to maintain a relatively firm grip on the ways in which young people plan their futures and make decisions about their economic affairs. In our view, this situation is likely to change in the future, and the evidence of a shift, from the late 1990s, towards private sector employment, suggests that the influence of the state on economic activities, though currently strong, may well loosen and the range of choices open to young people thereby widen. If this is the case then the character of the middle class may well change and its contribution to civil society increase. Although our available data have not enabled us to make detailed observations on middle class identities, our proposed future research will need to pay close attention to the variations in employment between the state and the private sector and the implications of this for identity formation and aspirations, as well as the relationships between consumption, lifestyles and political participation.
Finally, the phenomenon of the emerging middle class in Vietnam should be placed in the context of the tensions or contradictions between a state ideology which, on the one hand, still espouses a socialist ideology based on notions of social equality and on Marxist-Leninist definitions of social class, and, on the other, government policies directed to the integration of Vietnam into a global capitalist, market-based economy and the encouragement of social mobility and the accumulation of wealth. Economic renovation has created a new middle class and an increasingly complex and diverse social order, oriented to the acquisition of education and in pursuit of consumerist lifestyles. These emerging and changing social phenomena cannot be accommodated within Marxist-Leninist class categories. Rather they need to be understood in terms of Weberian concepts of market-capacity, prestige and status gradations, and in terms of ‘culturalist’ approaches to social phenomena which acknowledge the importance of ‘cultural process and the cultural construction of social identities’ (Kessler, Reference Kessler and Embong2001: 35). How these ideological tensions in the Vietnamese state will work themselves out in the coming years is uncertain. Gainsborough suggests that ‘A new generation of leaders in Vietnam may see things differently perhaps but more likely is that such [Marxist-Leninist] philosophical underpinnings will continue to impose limits on the kind of political change the state is willing to contemplate’ (2005b: 38). This may be so, but in our view it is clear that the size and importance of the middle class will continue to increase and those in power in Vietnam will have to make sustained efforts to accommodate its interests, needs and aspirations.
