Export growth and demographic changes: Evidence from Vietnam

Diem Hoang

No 1145, Ruhr Economic Papers from RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen

Abstract: This paper evaluates the impacts of trade liberalization on the marital and fertility choices of women in Vietnam. Applying a regional exposure approach, we leverage the U.S.-Vietnam Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) as an exogenous and positive shock to the nation's export growth. Our results indicate that young women (aged 18-28) in provinces more exposed to export tariff reductions tend to delay marriage and childbirth. In contrast, we observe no significant impact on the marriage and fertility decisions of older women, nor any changes in sex-selective behavior across the general population. Further analysis reveals that this trade shock does not influence women's participation in the labor force or their employment status, nor does it lead to increased gender segregation in the labor market. The observed delay in marriage and fertility among young women may be attributed to a shift from agriculture to manufacturing and women staying longer at schools.

JEL-codes: F61 J13 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/314409/1/1920340823.pdf (application/pdf)

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:zbw:rwirep:314409

DOI: 10.4419/96973328

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Ruhr Economic Papers from RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().