Assessment of Social Development Across Age Groups in Vietnam: Employing the Demographic Metric of Literate Life Expectancy

Truc Ngoc Hoang Dang and Hang Thi Thuy Do

SAGE Open, 2025, vol. 15, issue 2, 21582440251324694

Abstract: This study utilizes the demographic metric of Literate Life Expectancy (LLE) to evaluate Vietnam’s 70-year journey of social development across birth cohorts. By analyzing the Life Table (2019) and Age-specific Literacy Rates (2020), the magnitude of the gap in LLE between women and men is calculated to provide insights into the progress of healthcare initiatives and literacy improvement. A narrow women-men gap in LLE indicates a society with higher mortality rates and a significant literacy gap between women and men. Conversely, a wide women-men gap in LLE illustrates a society with lower mortality rates and apparent gender equality in literacy. Findings reveal three distinct stages of social development in Vietnam. Stage 1 (1935–1945) indicates LLE for women being lower than that of men which reflects slow pace of social progress during colonization. Stage 2 (1945–1975) illustrates LLE for women surpassing that of men, marking developing social progress after Vietnam’s declaration of independence from colonization. Stage 3 (1975–2004) shows a widening women-men gap in LLE, reflecting rapid social development with revolutionary reforms in healthcare and education after the Vietnam War. The discussion section outlines a compilation of basic education and primary healthcare policies corresponding to stages of social development in Vietnam.

Keywords: literate life expectancy; life expectancy; literacy rate; life table; gender equality; social development; Vietnam (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/21582440251324694 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:sagope:v:15:y:2025:i:2:p:21582440251324694

DOI: 10.1177/21582440251324694

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in SAGE Open
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().