Population aging and inhabitant consciousness of community development: a case study of the rural area in Thua Thien Hue Province, Vietnam

Abstract

Population aging, which is a global phenomenon, has strongly impacted the social lives of many societies around the world. In which, Japan and Vietnam are two of the twenty countries with the largest older population in the world. The “Kaso”- depopulation, has been occurring in rural Japan since the 1960s and has had negative impacts on community development. Vietnam in general, and Thua Thien Hue Province in particular is revealed to be in the beginning period of the “aging phase” - one of the Kaso signs. This paper attempts to clarify (1) how the extent of “Kaso” in Japan occurs in the study area of Vietnam; and (2) how is the inhabitant consciousness on daily life, socioeconomic development status and the concern of local people on the future development of rural community in context of projected population aging. Based on preliminary typology analysis of the demographic statistics (total population, aging population structure) of Thua Thien Hue at the commune level during the period of 1989-2012, two rural communes with aging population characters were chosen for further analysis through household questionnaires. The research result demonstrated that there has been similar to the initial situation of Kaso in rural Japan. However, the deep analysis result indicated that the presence of rural people’s negative consciousness of community development is not strong. Those preliminary results enable to emphasize significant importance on providing implicit information on the negative consciousness of rural people regarding the future of rural Vietnam.