GENDER INEQUALITY IN RURAL AREAS OF CENTRAL VIETNAM - CASE STUDY IN THUA THIEN HUE BIOGAS PLANT OWNERS

Gender equality is an important issue, international consensus is to achieve gender justice and it is as well one of the Millennium Development Goals. Vietnam is known for its remarkable achievements in educational sphere during socialistic era, anyway also through socialist policies (implemented in the north in 1954 and in the south in 1975) it lead to narrowing the gender gap. Aim of the survey was to analyse gender issue on biogas plant owners and farmers in central Vietnam with focus on relations between education, income, farm size and sex. The survey was carried out from July to September 2012 at the level of owners of BGP (n=100) in the area of districts Huong Tra and Phong Dien, part of Thua Thien Hue province in central Vietnam. Methods of data collection included focus group discussions, semi-structured personal interviews, questionnaires and observation. Collected data were summarized in Office Excel and processed with utilization of Statistica 10. In this paper were examined connection between highest achieved educational status, amount of income per household per month, farm size and gender. Study is showing relatively high level of education, but also it is showing gender inequality. For Vietnamese parents is their children's education very important factor, which stems from the influence of Confucianism (which highly values education), cultural predisposition and the socialistic era, during which there was a massive promotion of needs of education for all citizens. But as well Vietnam has higher percentage of working girls than boys, making them very difficult opportunity to study and further educate themselves. Our statistical analysis was based on the calculation of values of the nonparametric Spearmen's rank correlation coefficient. There was found significant correlations between all examined variables. Specifically it was relation between gender and highest achieved education rho = -0.31, alpha = 0.005; between gender and amount of income rho = -0.25, alpha = 0.005 and between gender and size of the farm rho = - 0.32, alpha = 0.005. As confirmed in other studies, using Vietnamese data showed that different socioeconomic variables are coitelated. This can tell us that different socioeconomic variables describe different aspects of socioeconomic status. This paper offers an analysis on gender issue with biogas plant owners and farmers in central Vietnam with focus on relations between education, income, farm size and sex. Hypothesis of gender inequality was confirmed in this research paper, as well as subjected to comparison with other studies. Systematic empirical studies of this topic are high priority for further research.