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Contents Introduction

Using the two rounds of Viet Nam Living Standards Survey collected in 1992-93 and 1997-98, this paper examines various aspects of the changing wage structure in the post-reform era, namely, gender wage gap and overall wage inequality. The results reveal that, in 1998, discrimination rather than endowment account for most of the within-sectoral gender wage differentials. While the within-sector differences are more important than the between-sector differences, the latter indicates that public sector downsizing has worsened women’s economic position as more women move away from the public sector to the private sector. Over time, the gender wage gap has narrowed. However, the decomposition results have highlighted that the narrowing gender pay gap has masked increase in discrimination. The analysis of the overall wage inequality indicates that in Viet Nam, unlike in other transition economies, wage inequality has decreased. Residual effect is identified as the key contributing factor to this outcome. The disequalising impact on inequality from the human capital and economic restructuring effect are evident but are completely offset by the equalising impact of the residuals.