Essays on Women's Education, Health Knowledge, and Fertility: Evidence from Vietnam

In 1991, Vietnam introduced a compulsory primary education reform requiring all children aged six and above to complete five years of primary schooling before age 15. This dissertation examines the reform’s implications for educational attainment, health knowledge, and early life outcomes. Chapter 1 exploits variation in reform exposure by age in 1991 to estimate its impact on educational attainment. I find that exposure to the reform increased primary school completion and improved transitions to secondary education among ethnic minorities. However, effects on higher schooling levels likely reflect concurrent educational and economic developments, so the reform does not provide a clean source of exogenous variation in schooling. Chapters 2 and 3 instead focus on reduced-form effects of reform exposure, capturing both schooling-related and contemporaneous influences. Chapter 2 shows that exposure improved HIV/AIDS knowledge but did not reduce stigma, suggesting that discrimination in Vietnam is rooted more in cultural norms than in information deficits. Chapter 3 finds that exposure delayed early childbearing among ethnic minority women, likely through longer schooling and expectations of improved job opportunities arising from economic growth.

Author dc:creator

• Tra Yen Nhi Phan (23292121)

• Effects of education

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright
• Open Access after 2028-01-01

DOI dc:identifier

https://doi.org/10.25417/uic.31451863.v1

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:figshare.com:article/31451863