Depocenwp
DEPOCEN Working Paper Series
Ngo Quang - Thanh, Nguyen Tan - Vinh, 2012. "IMPACT OF THE QUALITY OF COMMUNE LEADING CADRES ON HOUSEHOLD LIVING STANDARD IN VIETNAM"
   
Abstract:
Speeding up the rural industrialization and modernization in the development strategy of Vietnam has been considered as a very important task in the CPV and Vietnamese State's agenda, given its contribution into the success of the country as a whole. The rural area in Vietnam has the comparably lowest level of development, has accounted for 70 per cent of the national population, 76 per cent of labour forces, and has contributed up to 25-27 per cent of the nation's GDP. The development of the rural area has gone along with the quality of the commune-level cadres who are the core forces of the grass-roots political system where it deals with daily life of the mass. The capacity and the effectiveness of the commune-level cadres have a direct impact on the development of rural area in Vietnam. In this study, we focus our analysis on a gap that is the current relationship between the quality of commune-level cadres and the rural development in Vietnam. Our research questions include: - What are the characteristics of commune-level cadres in Vietnam in terms of ethnic, age, gender, number of working years in the area, previous position, number of working years holding the current position, the qualification and education level. - To what extent that the quality of the commune-level cadres has an impact on the rural development in Vietnam (specifically, household's living standard, economic and social infrastructure) - What are the implications in order to upgrade the quality of the commune-level cadres in the rural industrialization and modernization in Vietnam? In order to answer the above research questions, the study applies correlation and regression analyses. Data mainly comes from the Vietnam Living Standards Survey in 2006. In our model, the commune-level cadres include commune president/vice-president, head/deputy head of police section and the head/deputy head of cooperative. The quality of the commune-level cadres is assessed basing on the following information: - The highest certificate on technique, administrative management, or political background - Educational level (number of years of schooling) - Characteristics on ethnic, age, gender, number of working years in the area, previous position, number of working years holding the current position, the qualification and education level. Information on the economic and social infrastructure is: - Living standard: Income (expenditure) per capita at the commune level - Economic infrastructure (electricity, road, school and medical units at the commune level) - Social disorder The regression results show that: - With regard to commune chairpersons, political degree and degree of college or higher are important for increasing household living standard. Degree of college or higher has a stronger affect than political degree of various kinds over per capita real expenditure. - With regard to commune leading cadres, the percentage of leading cadres with college degree or higher plays a more important role than the one of other kinds of degrees. The percentage of leading cadres with college degree or higher seems to be the unique factor among the similar indicators that can increase the household living standard. - Age of commune chairperson has a positive impact on household living standard. However, the impact is inversed at a certain age. The study ends with some policy recommendations on (1) training and (2) absorbing young cadres.
View PDF