Social reproduction in Vietnam: Educational attainment, employment, and skills usage

•Prior levels of social stratification are predictive of educational attainment.•Educational attainment is predictive of employment in the Vietnam context.•Higher educational attainment is predictive of less repetitive work.•Changing skill demands has implications for social reproduction in Vietnam.

Education can be seen as a social structure that reproduces existing levels of social, economic, and cultural distributions. Using Vietnam as a case study, this paper seeks to examine how these theories hold up in a socio-political and socio-economic context that has been less examined, specifically in one of the few remaining single-party socialist countries that advocates Communism. The findings suggest prior levels of social stratification are predictive of educational attainment, and educational attainment is predictive of employment. Higher educational attainment is also predictive of having occupations in economic sectors with less repetitive work and more autonomy.