Education, Health, and Institutional Responsibilities in Viet Nam's Welfare Regime

Abstract

Informed by a critical engagement of academic literature on welfare regimes, this essay seeks to explain empirically how different mixes of institutional responsibility for the provision and payment for education and health services in Viet Nam affects the costs, qualities, and distributions of education and health services across different regions and among different segments of the country’s population; and explore the implications of these findings and relevant international experience for public policies and debates concerning institutional arrangements governing the provision and payment for education and health services. The essay clarifies the complex and in respects contradictory principles that govern the provision and payment for education and health services in Viet Nam. In so doing, the essay aims to stimulate debate about universalism versus targeting by advancing the claim that Viet Nam requires a new political-class settlement that clearly defines the meaning of citizenship, the responsibility of the state, and the scope and limits of the market’s allocative role.

Keywords: Vietnam, Viet Nam, welfare regime, education, health, developing countries, East Asia, Southeast Asia