I BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE OF THE SPECIAL ISSUE

Vietnam has experienced a dramatic transition to a market‐based economy, high economic growth, and globalization since the mid‐1980s. As a result, many new types of economic opportunities have emerged, especially since 2000.

During this period, social inequality in Vietnam appears to be greater than the published statistics indicate. Although the Gini coefficient shows no persistent trend from 1992 to 2016 (the consumption‐based Gini was 0.357 in 1992 and 0.353 in 2016),11 World Bank, World Development Indicators, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.GINI?locations=VN (accessed November 12, 2019). many Vietnamese people, including many policymakers and academics, tend to think that inequality has increased. It seems that many of these perceptions are founded in observations of divergent incomes and opportunities linked to the country's rapid growth and development, even if these loci of inequity may be individually insufficient to move the needle in aggregate measures of inequality. For example, the number of the superrich, whose net assets excluding their principal residence is US$30 million or more, has grown (World Bank 2014, p. 45), while few improvements are seen in the education, nutrition, and hygiene of children in the country's ethnic minority communities that make up about 15% of total population (World Bank and MPI 2016, pp. 45–47). Perceptions of widening inequality have persisted throughout the doi moi era, and acquired additional credibility from evidence of substantial overestimates of economic mobility caused by measurement errors in household income and consumption data (Glewwe and Nguyen 2004).

The goal of this special issue is to suggest a new framework for capturing diversification of people's pathways to prosperity in Vietnamese society and the emergence of various types of inequality as a result. Modernization theory, which has been one of the core theories in sociological studies, suggests that economic development is accompanied by transitional changes in employment and incomes leading to an increase in social mobility and, in the long run, to decreased inequality among social strata. Vietnam displays rich evidence of such an increase in mobility. Yet it is often observed that upward mobility in transition economies is also constrained by conditions that cannot be attained by people's own efforts, such as political connections and family background (Hanley, Yershova, and Anderson 1995; Walder 2003; Walder, Li, and Treiman 2000). This type of inequality, what we call “structural inequality,” is observable in Vietnam as well, and is a cause of concern for some people.

In addressing these points, this special issue explores the reality of Vietnamese society from various dimensions, both qualitatively and quantitatively. Specifically, we focus on the characteristics of political and economic elites, conditions for educational achievement as the important resource to access elite jobs, and upward economic mobility of rural households that account for over 60% of Vietnamese society.

中文翻译：

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越南的繁荣之路特刊简介：机会分配中的结构性和过渡性不平等

特殊问题的背景和目的

自1980年代中期以来，越南经历了向市场经济，高经济增长和全球化的戏剧性转变。结果，出现了许多新型的经济机会，特别是自2000年以来。

在此期间，越南的社会不平等现象似乎大于已公布的统计数据。尽管基尼系数在1992年至2016年间没有持续的趋势（基于消费的基尼系数在1992年为0.357，在2016年为0.353），11世界银行，《世界发展指标》，https：//data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.GINI？locations = VN（2019年11月12日访问）。许多越南人，包括许多决策者和学者，往往认为不平等现象加剧了。看来，许多这种看法是建立在观察到与该国的快速增长和发展有关的不同收入和机会的基础上的，即使这些不平等的地方可能不足以单独推动总体不平等衡量。例如，净资产（不包括其主要居所在内的净资产为3,000万美元或以上）的人数有所增加（世界银行，2014年，第45页），而儿童的教育，营养和卫生状况几乎没有改善该国的少数民族社区约占总人口的15％（世界银行和MPI 2016，第45-47页）。在整个doi moi时代，对不平等现象不断扩大的认识一直存在，并从家庭收入和消费数据的计量误差导致的经济流动性被高估的证据中获得了更多的可信度（Glewwe和Nguyen 2004）。

本期特刊的目的是提出一个新的框架，以捕捉越南社会繁荣人们的多元化途径，并由此导致各种不平等现象的出现。现代化理论是社会学研究的核心理论之一，它表明经济发展伴随着就业和收入的过渡性变化，从而导致社会流动性的增加，并且从长远来看，将减少社会阶层之间的不平等。越南显示出这种流动性增加的充分证据。然而，人们经常观察到，转型经济中的向上流动性还受到人们自己的努力无法实现的条件的限制，例如政治联系和家庭背景（Hanley，Yershova和Anderson 1995；Hanley，Yershova和Anderson，1995年；2003 ; Walder，Li和Treiman 2000）。这种不平等现象，我们称之为“结构性不平等”，在越南也很明显，这引起了一些人的关注。

为了解决这些问题，本期特刊从定性和定量两个角度探讨了越南社会的现实。具体而言，我们关注政治和经济精英的特征，作为获得精英工作的重要资源的教育成就条件以及占越南社会60％以上的农村家庭的向上经济流动性。