So the average Vietnamese spends 86 percent of his or her food budget on other items such as fruits, vegetables, and a little meat. The 1998 household survey collected responses from 15,625 people who had worked in the seven days preceding the interview. As shown in table 2, the largest occupation category is self-employed farmers, who make up 59 percent of the work force. Much of the debate about the negative effects of globalization on workers in low-income countries has focused on workers in factories that make clothing and shoes for export to the U.S. and other wealthy countries. In contrast, only 23 percent of workers in joint ventures are employed in such firms.
Joint ventures employ more men than women and fewer individuals in their twenties.
12.1 Figure 1. There are several ways to compare the status of Vietnamese who work in FOBs with those in other employment. One is to examine the consumption expenditure levels of the households to which these workers belong. Presumably, workers exploited in a sweatshop would be less able to support their families and, thus, would be relatively poor. Evidence against this is shown in table 4.