The World Values Survey is a worldwide investigation of sociocultural and political change. It has carried out representative national surveys of the basic values and beliefs of publics in more than 65 societies on all six inhabited continents, containing almost 80 percent of the world's population. It builds on the European Values Surveys, first carried out in 1981. A second wave of surveys, designed for global use, was completed in 1990-1991, a third wave was carried out in 1995-1996 and a fourth wave is taking place in 1999-2001. This investigation has produced evidence of gradual but pervasive changes in what people want out of life, and the basic direction of these changes is, to some extent, predictable.

This project is being carried out by an international network of social scientists, with local funding for each survey (though in some cases, it has been possible to raise supplementary funds from outside sources). In exchange for providing the data from interviews with a representative national sample of at least 1,000 people in their own society, each participating group gets immediate access to the data from all of the other participating societies. Thus, they are able to compare the basic values and beliefs of the people of their own society with those of more than 60 other societies. In addition, they are invited to international meetings at which they can compare findings and interpretations with other members of the WVS network. The project is guided by a steering committee representing all regions of the world. Coordination and distribution of data are based at the Institute for Social Research of the University of Michigan, under the direction of Ronald Inglehart.

The Vietnamese Survey

The 2001 World Values Survey--Vietnam was conducted by the Institute  for Human Studies in Hanoi, under the direction of Dr. Pham Minh Hac. The Center for the Study of Democracy at UC Irvine, and Prof. Ronald Inglehart at the University of Michigan provided assistance in developing the survey. The Institute for Human Studies is affiliated with the National Center for Social Sciences and Humanities. The Institute was founded in September 1999. Its purpose is to conduct theoretical work and empirical studies of the human being in order to provide a scientific basis for policies and strategies toward human development.

The Institute's specific research interests include: research methodology; theories and issues of human development, such as socioeconomic status, intelligence quotient, emotional intelligence, etc.; human resource of Vietnam at regional and national levels; motivation; biopsychological features (e.g., biometry, genetic problems, and psychological tests) of the Vietnamese people; the mind-body duality debate; the relationship between culture and human development (i.e., the socio-cultural features of the Vietnamese people: traditional customs and modern life, similarities and differences between East and West, cultural diversity, transnational cultures, acculturation, etc.); human talents and abilities; human rights; socio-ecological issues (human beings and their environment, human beings and technology).

The Institute also collects data for the Human Development Index of Vietnam and publishes an annual national report, Human Affairs in Hanoi.

Fieldwork

Fieldwork for the World Values Survey was done during the months of September-October 2001. The study used a multistage area probability sample, with random household selection at the last stage. Information on the sample design is available at the following link: Sample Design.

The Survey

The survey is now available through the Inter-university Consortium for Political Research, University of Michigan, as part of the public release of the fourth wave of the World Values Survey (www.icpsr.umich.edu).

The questionnaire for the study was the core World Values Survey instrument, with minor modifications to adapt it to the Vietnamese case:

• English Language Questionnaire
• Vietnamese Language Questionnaire
• SPSS Portable File for Vietnamese Survey

The full WVS dataset is available from the ICPSR, WVS website and other data archives. Please note that some some of the questions in the Vietnamese survey differ from the common core dataset. Please acknowledge the Institute for Human Studies in any publication with these data.

United Nations Socio-Economic Data On Vietnam

This link provides data from the United Nations on Vietnam's income levels, literacy rates, and other socio-economic characteristics of the nation, with comparison to other UN member nations.

• Vietnam Data Page

Reports

• A book on the World Values Survey findings in East Asia is forthcoming: Russell Dalton and Doh Chull Shin, eds. Citizens, Democracy and Markets around the Pacific Rim: Congruence Theory and Political Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2006).
• Public Attitudes toward a Market Economy in Vietnam (June 2005), Pham Minh Hac and Pham Thanh Nghi.
• See the conference on "Citizens, Markets and Democracy around the Pacific Rim" (March 2004) that presented research on the World Values Survey findings. The book from this conference is forthcoming (2006) from Oxford University Press.
• The Parallel Development of Democracy and Markets, Doh Chull Shin. Paper is published in the CSD research paper series.
• Four Vietnamese Generations: Support for Democracy and a Market Economy, Nhu-Ngoc T. Ong. Paper presented at a conference at the Institute for Human Studies, Hanoi, November 2003.
• Democratic Development in the Pacific Rim: Citizen Orientations toward Democracy, Russell Dalton and Doh Chull Shin. September 2003.
• Authority Orientations and Political Values in East Asia: A Test of the "Asian Values" Hypothesis. Paper presented at the annual meetings of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, April 2003; a revised version was presented at the conference on "How People View Democracy: Public Opinion in New Democracies," at the Center for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, Stanford University, July 2003; September 2003 revision.
• Civil Society and Social Capital in Vietnam To appear in Modernization and Social Change in Vietnam. Munich: Munich Institute for Social Science, 2003.
• Democracy and Markets: Citizen Values in the Pacific Rim Region (Hawaii International Social Science Conference, June 2002).
• Social Relations and Social Capital in Vietnam Comparative Sociology (2002) 1: 369-86. Translated and reprinted in Nghiên cúu Con Nguòi (2002) 2: 27-42.
• Preliminary Report (November 2001):
• The Vietnamese Public in Transition
• The Vietnamese Public in Transition: Executive Summary (Vietnamese)
• The Vietnamese Public in Transition (Report in Vietnamese)
• List of Media Reports on the Vietnamese Survey
• For additional information email Vietnamese World Values Project, UC Irvine