ABSTRACT
Major social, political, and economic changes have occurred in Asia over the past few decades, and these changes are likely to substantially impact key institutions, including the family. Vietnam, in particular, has experienced profound changes during the past century, including prolonged periods of war, socialist collectivization, political reunification, a shift from a centrally planned to a market-based economy, and an extensive opening to the outside world. Additionally, major policy initiatives designed to affect basic aspects of family life, including mate selection and marriage, gender relations, and family size, have been adopted by the Vietnamese government. Although speculation on the effects of these changes is common, little systematic, empirically based research has been conducted into the nature and extent of family change and the major influences on it. A major problem has been a lack of baseline data, which has made it difficult to determine the extent to which family patterns and relations have actually changed in response to social changes, and to gauge how the combination of wartime and revolutionary experiences, socialist ideology, market reforms, and the exposure to Western ideas and media have affected Vietnamese families.
