Modelling the choice of Vietnamese adolescents between school and work

ABSTRACT

Based on the Vietnamese Household Living Standard Survey (VHLSS) 2014, the factors of participation in education and/or labour market of Vietnamese adolescents in the age range 11 to 18 is studied. Children working too much, in particular at age 11 to 15, are actually in child labour, and also older adolescents may compromise their future due to sacrificing education for work. Many children in developing countries combine school and work and, in addition, the category inactive or ‘not in education, employment or training’ must be taken into account. Hence, the choice between four possible outcomes, school only, combining school and work, work only and inactivity, is analysed by a comprehensive discrete choice model. The conceptual model for our analysis considers, in addition to classical personal and household factors, also ethnicity, region, urbanicity and seven public development programmes. These factors are particularly important for the development policy of Vietnam. The complex design of the VHLSS needs proper weighting and adaptation of methods. Gender, age, income and the education of adults in the household have a strong impact on the choice. Ethnicity, urbanicity and regional disparities are relevant, too, but only two development programmes have a significant impact.

KEYWORDS:

• School to work transition
• not in employment education or training
• development programmes
• discrete choice model
• complex sampling design

Acknoweledgements

The research for this paper was supported by the “Bilateral research collaboration with the Asia-Pacific region 2013–2016” of the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation. We are grateful for the support by the developer of the R package survey, Thomas Lumley.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. https://vietnamnews.vn/society/484072/viet-nam-still-lacks-legal-framework-to-protect-child-labour.html#pQ0IDgcBAeodcDo0.97, accessed on 16 August 2019.

2. These programs may be applied simultaneously to a household, but are present only in rural regions.

3. ‘Programme 135 (P135) was established in 1998 to implement government policies targeting the most vulnerable communes, promoting production and access to basic infrastructure, improving education, training local officials and raising people’s awareness for better living standards and quality of life’ (Quan 2008).

4. Share of youth not in education, employment or training, total (% of the youth population), International Labour Organisation, ILOSTAT database. Data retrieved on April 2019. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.UEM.NEET.ZS?locations=VN .

5. http://factsanddetails.com/southeast-asia/Vientnam/suba5_9d/entry-3394.html, accessed 16 August 2019.

6. The R-code for survey-adjusted maximum likelihood estimation for the multinomial logistic regression is available from the authors.

7. Tree models (CART) were used to check with an even larger array of potential variables whether further variables should be included in the model.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation.

Notes on contributors

Beat Hulliger

Beat Hulliger has a PhD in Mathematics from Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zürich. He was survey research methodology expert at Swiss Federal Statistical Office and deputy head of the methodology unit. Since 2007 he is Professor of Economic and Social Research at FHNW School of Business, where he teaches applied statistics at undergraduate and graduate level. His main research areas are robust methods for survey research, data preparation, and business analytics with applications in poverty studies and health economics.

Nguyen Thi Hong Thu

Nguyen Thi Hong Thus has a PhD from University of Quebec in Montreal. She is Lecturer on international finance and risk Management at University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City and Vice-Dean of the School of International Business and Marketing. Her main research areas are poverty studies and school to work transition as well as econometric analysis of survey data.