The changing distribution of land in rural Vietnam, 2004–2014

This paper analyses the changing distribution of land in rural Vietnam based on plot-level information in the Vietnam Household Living Standards Surveys. Both agricultural and residential land holdings in Vietnam became more unequally distributed between 2004 and 2014, due to rising landlessness in the bottom quintile and land accumulation in the top quartile of the land distribution. Applying Fields’ regression-based inequality decomposition, we find the main drivers of land inequality were the share of household members working in agriculture and the shares of forestry and perennial crop land. In contrast, irrigation and off-farm employment contributed to reducing land inequality. Landlessness and near landlessness, which increased by almost two-fifths, is associated with similar factors, along with higher education of the household head. Taken together, these results underline the rapid structural transformation that has occurred in rural Vietnam. The rise in functional landlessness observed presents a challenge to the Vietnamese Government’s desire to promote growth with equity.