The value of children has emerged as an important lens in understanding social changes and individual decision-making concerning childbearing and childrearing. The current study illustrates the usefulness of this lens in the context of contemporary Vietnam, based on a national representative survey dataset. We develop a theoretical framework incorporating three sets of structural factors (cohort, South or North, family SES) plus demographic factors to understand the valuation of children and its fertility implications. We reveal the following findings. First, we document a generally higher emotional value than instrumental value among Vietnamese respondents across cohorts. Moreover, the post-reform birth cohort reports both lower emotional and lower instrumental value of children; and the Southern sample on average holds higher emotional and higher instrumental values of children than the Northern sample. Second, in regression analysis, the emotional value of children shows little variation and the proposed factors explain a lower proportion of its variation, but we capture a strong cohort effect, regional divide and social class effect on the instrumental value of children. Last, while there exists a negative association between emotional valuation of children and respondents’ fertility, and a positive association between instrumental valuation of children and respondents’ fertility, such effects have been reduced to non-significant levels once independent variables (birth cohort, region, and family SES) are controlled. This study challenges and complicates the dominant discourse in existing literature on the rise of the “emotionally valuable” and “economically and instrumentally useless” child in modern societies. We instead reveal that respondents’ value orientations and their impact on fertility trends should be contextualized in Vietnam’s historical and political trajectory of ‘complex modernization’.

儿童的价值已成为理解社会变化和有关生育和育儿的个人决策的重要镜头。当前的研究基于全国代表性的调查数据集，说明了这种镜片在当代越南语境下的有用性。我们建立了一个理论框架，其中包含三组结构性因素（队列，南部或北部，家庭SES）以及人口统计因素，以了解儿童的价值及其生育能力。我们揭示以下发现。首先，我们记录了整个队列中越南受访者的情感价值普遍高于工具价值。此外，改革后的出生队列报告了儿童的情绪低落和工具价值较低；与南部样本相比，南部样本平均拥有更高的儿童情感和工具价值。其次，在回归分析中，儿童的情感价值几乎没有变化，建议的因素解释了其变化比例较低，但我们对儿童的工具价值表现出强烈的队列效应，区域鸿沟和社会阶层效应。最后，虽然儿童的情感价值与受访者的生育力之间存在负相关关系，而儿童的工具价值与受访者的生育率之间存在正相关关系，但一旦自变量（出生队列，地区，以及家庭SES）受到控制。这项研究挑战和复杂化了现有文献中关于“情感上有价值的”和“经济上和工具上无用的”儿童在现代社会中崛起的主流论述。相反，我们揭示，应在越南的“复杂现代化”的历史和政治轨迹中将受访者的价值取向及其对生育率趋势的影响纳入背景。