description) The objective of this project is to collect longitudinal survey data that will allow for an examination of the impacts of rapid socioeconomic change and the transition to the market economy on family structure and fertility in Vietnam. The first round of the Vietnam Longitudinal Survey (VLS), an area probability sample survey of 1,855 households in two provinces in the Red River Delta in northern Vietnam, was conducted in the Fall of 1995. The plan is to re-interview respondents every year for the next five years (e.g., 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2000). In this """"""""small grant"""""""" application, support is requested for the continuation of fieldwork and preliminary analysis of the VLS for the 24 month period from June 1, 1996 to May 30, 1998. The major innovative feature of the research design is an attempt to measure the origin and spread of family economic enterprises over the next five years as the Vietnamese economy shifts from central control to a market orientation. The VLS sampling frame was selected to include ten urban and rural communities that were stratified by their distance to major highways with the hypothesis that the forces of the market and modernization will follow the major lines of transportation in the coming years. It is expected that some family economic activities will grow from part-time sideline activities to become large businesses, others will fail, and others will be merged with existing firms. With parallel time-series data on family structure and fertility (and other demographic processes), the influence of economic change on household demographic behavior can be tested.
