Vietnam Population and AIDS Indicator Survey 2005 ... - Measure DHS

Nine out of ten respondents report having no religious affiliation. Six percent of respondents
report being Catholic, and one percent Buddhist. While Vietnam is comprised of many ethnicities, the
Kinh (Vietnamese) are of the overwhelming majority. Eighty-six percent of survey respondents are Kinh,
and the 1999 Census reports the Kinh to be 89 percent of the total population of Vietnam. Tay and Dao
ethnicities comprise two percent each of survey respondents and the remaining ten percent are comprised
of smaller ethnic groups.
The overwhelming majority of women (94 percent) and men (96 percent) have been to school.
Twenty-two percent of women and 18 percent of men have primary education, and about two-thirds of
women (63 percent) and men (69 percent) have secondary education. The same proportion of women and
men (10 percent) has achieved more than a secondary education.
The distribution of sample respondents across wealth quintiles is such that approximately onefifth
of respondents falls into one of each of the quintiles. The wealth index was constructed such that the
sample was purposefully divided into quintiles and the distribution shown in Table 3.1 reflects that
construction. See Chapter 2 for a discussion of the wealth index.
About four-fifths of women (78 percent) and men (80 percent) reside in rural areas. The
distribution of respondents by region shows that 25 percent live in the Central region while equal
proportions (37-38 percent) live in the North and the South.
Table 3.1 also shows the proportion of women and men who reside in four provinces (Ha Noi, Ho
Chi Minh City, Hai Phong and Quang Ninh). Because HIV/AIDS programs target these provinces, they
were over-sampled and all survey results are available for each of them.
3.4 EDUCATION ATTAINMENT
A key determinant of lifestyle and status of an individual is education. It affects many aspects of
human life. This survely, like many others, shows that educational attainment is strongly related to
awareness, knowledge, attitudes, and behavior towards prevention, care and support regarding
HIV/AIDS. Table 3.2 presents the percent distribution of female and male respondents aged 15-49 by
their highest level of education achieved, according to selected background characteristics.
About 6 percent of women and 4 percent of men have never attended school. For both women
and men, the gradual decline over time in the proportion of the population that has not attended school
reflects improvements in the educational system over the past years. Data also suggest that men and
women are nearly equally likely to be educated. For example, while the proportion of men with secondary
education is slightly higher than that of women (69 and 63 percent, respectively), the proportion of men
and women with more than secondary education is the same (10 percent). One in five 20-24 year-olds has
achieved more than secondary education (17 percent of men and 20 percent of women).
There is a very strong association between educational attainment and the wealth index. Data
indicate that respondents in the higher wealth quintiles are much more likely to be educated than
respondents of the lower wealth quintiles. The proportion of people that has never attended school
decreases dramatically as the wealth index increases, and the proportion of people with some schooling
increases as the wealth index increases. For example, one-quarter of women (24 percent) and 15 percent
of men in the lowest wealth quintile have never been to school, compared to less than 1 percent of those
in the highest wealth quintile. Conversely, more than one-quarter of women and men in the highest wealth
quintile have achieved more than secondary education, compared to about 1 percent of those in the lowest
wealth quintile having achieved more than secondary education.
Characteristics of Respondents | 25