The census, conducted October 1-10, 1980 in Vietnam, is intended to provide an accurate base from which population trends can be discerned. The data will be incorporated into the 3rd 5 year plan and will carry social, political, and economic implications. The 10 day enumeration effort was followed by a 3 day validation check of 10-20% of the sample to determine estimates of omissions and duplicates. The errors were within an acceptable margin. Some difficulties were encountered in collecting the data due to inclement weather, harvest activities, and unstable provinces. The results estimate the population size to be 52.76 million and the annual growth rate is 2.6%. The population size has increased 10.7% since 1975. The smaller annual growth rate experienced in the north, 2.2% compared to 3% in the south, is attributed to the implementation of successful family planning programs beginning in 1963. Over the past 20 years the north has decreased its growth rate by 20%. By 1976, the south had linked up with the network of family planning programs. The focus of the next 5 years will be an extension of these programs in the southern rural areas and a more deliberate governmental campaign so that the goal of 1% annual growth by 2000 and zero growth by 2050 can be achieved. Vietnam's youth dependency burden is significant, with 48% of the population under the age of 15 years. 51.5% of the population is female, and a male-female imbalance is noted in the 25-45 year old group. Women comprise 45% of the general working force, 60% of the rural workers, 60% of the public health personnel, and 55% of the teachers. In 1976, 21% of the total population lived in urban areas, 30% of the southerners were urbanites. Since that time there has been a deliberate effort to encourage turnaround migration, particularly moving northerners into southern rural reconstruction zones. The efforts have reduced urban populations and according to the census, 25.6% in the south and 13.4% in the north live in urban areas. Other relocation efforts have been successful in the north. Between 1971-1975, 1 million peasants moved from their villages of birth recognizing that villages could support only 1/2 of their natural population. More than 80% of the population lives in the countryside, 71.3% are agriculture dependent or farm employed. In the north, 87% of the population lives in rural areas, compared to 75% in the south, and 75% of the northerners are employed in agriculture, compared to 68% in the south. The growth in the rural based population is attributed to extension and consolidation of agricultural cooperatives, reorganization of labor on state farms, increases in the size and proportion of minority populations most of whom are agriculturally based and are not targets of family planning efforts, emigration of the Chinese, and the development of agricultural economic zones. Ethnic minorities comprise 8% of the total population, and are located mostly in the central mountain highlands and in north and northwest provinces near Laos and China. In the north, the minority annual population growth is 3.3% compared to 2.9% for the general population. Agricultural production has been deficient due to poor weather, poor management and cultivating techniques, and lack of adequate materials and technical facilities. 5 million additional hectares, which would double the present number, could be brought under cultivation in the next 10-15 years. This would relieve the food problem only if the population growth substantially declined. In the north, there has been a slight decrease in the number of children desired among rural families. A slight preference for male children is reported. Northern parents expect their children to receive at least a middle school education and do not want them to be peasants and farmers. The implications are apparent for the social and economic planner who expects agricultural labor to come from present peasant families. (Abstract Truncated)
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Dec 31, 2023
Anh Tho Le 
Open Access
