Social Capital Configuration Variation and the Contemporary Transformation of Rural Vietnam

This article examines the contemporary transformation of rural Vietnam in relation to market economy dynamics and regionally varying configurations of social capital. It is based on the author’s longitudinal and panel study of seven Vietnamese lowland communities (two in the north, two in the mid-central coast, and three in the southern Mekong Delta) over a decade in the twenty-first century. Living standards in the rural Vietnamese lowlands have increased significantly thanks mainly to migration, industrial production dispersal to smaller provinces, and the higher wages in rural communities that have resulted from reduced labour supply. However, per capita income has generally increased faster in communities in the northern delta and the central coast than in those of the Mekong Delta. This article suggests that the differences in social capital configuration between the northern Red River Delta and the central coast on the one hand, and in the southern Mekong Delta on the other, have contributed to the faster per capita income growth in the former.

社会资本配置变化与当代越南乡村的转型

关键词： 乡村生活水准， 越南， 社会资本， 地区差异， 经济发展。

本论文考察了越南乡村在市场经济动态方面的当代转型，以及社会资本在地区间不同的配置。本文基于作者对7个越南低地社区本世纪十年以上（北部2个，中-中部沿海地区2个，湄公河三角洲南部3个）的纵贯性（longitudinal）和固定样本小组（panel）研究。随着移民、工业生产向更小省份扩散以及由于劳力供应缩减而导致的乡村社区更高薪酬等因素，越南低地乡村的生活水准得到了显著的提高。然而，三角洲北部地区和中部沿海地区人均收入普遍比湄公河三角洲地区增长得更快。本文提出，红河三角洲北部和中部沿海与湄公河三角洲南部地区的社会资本配置上的差异已经对前者更快的人均收入增长做出了贡献。

Translated from English by Li Guo