Exploring income inequality in rural, coastal Viet Nam

Income inequality has been rising in parallel with the economic liberalisat ion process in the former centrally planned economies. The opportunities fo r non-agricultural income associated with the market liberalisation process in former centrally planned economies would seem to be important irt deter mining inequality within the rural sector: This article review's the trends in inequality in Viet Nam examining differential trends and hypothesised c auses, Inequality is important because of its relationship to other factors in the evolution of the agricultural economy such as the incidence of pove rty and the sustainability of emerging income sources. This article analyse s income inequality based on data collected by the author in two Districts in coastal northern Viet Nam, The results demonstrate that non-agricultural income sources, specifically aquaculture and wage and remittance, contribu te more to present inequality than any other income source. Simulation show s that the emergence of`aquaculture since the late 1980s has been driving t he inequality increase in that period Hence the analysis provides evidence that non-agricultural income increases inequality even without asset concen tration. This concentration olf income is important in the north Viet Nam c ontext since if is concurrent with present-clap land allocation and will af fect the structure of future income growth.