Dietary Diversity, Food Security and Undernourishment: The Vietnamese Evidence

Asian Economic Journal 2009, Vol. 23 No. 2, 225–247

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© 2009 The AuthorsJournal compilation © 2009 East Asian Economic Association and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Dietary Diversity, Food Security and Undernourishment: The Vietnamese Evidence

*

Vinod Mishra and Ranjan Ray

Received 13 May 2008; accepted 10 March 2009

As is widely known, Vietnam experienced a rise in living standards and a declinein expenditure poverty during the first half of the 1990s. This paper extends thisknowledge by providing evidence on the Vietnamese experience of food security,undernourishment and poverty from the late 1990s to the early part of the newmillennium. The results suggest that poor households did not experience increasesin food consumption, calorie intake and dietary diversity of the same magnitudeas non-poor households. Nevertheless, Vietnam experienced impressive reduc-tions in both calorie deprivation and expenditure poverty at the turn of thecentury. Non-poor households, in particular, experienced spectacular increases incalorie intake and dietary diversity during the period 1997/1998–2004. Thispaper also reports regression results which point to the role of urbanization andimprovement in education levels in promoting dietary diversity and nutrientintake. The present study finds evidence of sharp regional differences in calorieintake and calorie costs, which suggests that the authorities should set provin-cial poverty lines, contrary to the current practice adopted by Vietnam’s GeneralStatistical Office.

Keywords

: food security, prevalence of undernourishment, dietary diversity,poverty line, Vietnam.

JEL classification codes

: C23, O15, O53, R23.

doi

: 10.1111/j.1467-8381.2009.02010.x

I. Introduction

There are few topics that are of greater importance to individual survival andhuman development than nutritional adequacy and food security. With theavailability of improved and disaggregated survey information on food con-sumption, attention has shifted from an almost exclusive focus on monetaryindicators, such as poverty measures and per capita income, to a range of

* Vinod Mishra: Department of Economics, Monash University, Berwick Campus, Berwick, Vic3806, Australia. Email: [email protected]. Ranjan Ray Department of Economics,Monash University, Clayton, Vic 3800, Australia. Email: [email protected]. Financialsupport for this study, provided by a Discovery Grant from the Australian Research Council, isgratefully acknowledged. The authors thank the participants, especially the discussants, at aninternational seminar on poverty in Patna, India, organized by the Institute of Human Development,Delhi for their comments. Helpful comments from an anonymous referee are also gratefullyacknowledged. The authors thank their host institutions for research support.

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non-monetary indicators, such as energy intake, dietary diversity, and theprevalence of undernourishment. Such a shift is in the spirit of Sen (1999),who argues that ‘poverty must be seen as the deprivation of basic capabilitiesrather than merely as lowness of incomes, which is the standard criterion ofidentification of poverty’ (p. 87). Strong empirical support for a shift in emphasisto a more encompassing approach is provided by Baulch and Masset (2002),who show, using evidence from Vietnam, that monetary and non-monetaryindicators do not always tell the same story; for example, they find that ‘monetarypoverty is less persistent than malnutrition among adults and stunting amongchildren . . .’

Vietnam is a particularly interesting example because there was, followingthe ‘

Doi Moi

’ (‘renovation’) reforms, a dramatic increase in living standardsfrom the late 1980s to the second half of the 1990s, as measured by the con-ventional monetary indicators. Does Vietnam’s impressive performance interms of poverty reduction during the first half of the 1990s (see World Bank,2000) extend to food security, as measured by per capita food consumption,calorie intake and dietary diversity? How does Vietnam’s performance in termsof poverty reduction and food security in the early to mid-1990s compare withher performance in the late 1990s and the early part of the new millennium?Has there been uniform improvement in living standards, as measured bythe per capita consumption of food items and the intake of calories, betweenhouseholds below and above the poverty line? What do the magnitude and trendin food consumption in Vietnam imply for the construction of Vietnam’scalorie-based poverty lines, especially in relation to those used in officialcalculations? The principal motivation of this study is to attempt to answerthese policy relevant questions and provide new empirical evidence that will behelpful in drawing policy lessons for other countries. This study adds to agrowing literature on food security and calorie consumption in Vietnam (seee.g. Hop, 2003; Dien et al. 2004; Thang and Popkin, 2004; Molini, 2006).Much of this evidence relates to the 1990s, but, as the present study reports,there were dramatic changes in both the magnitude and pattern of Vietnamesefood consumption at the turn of the century that have led to considerableimprovement in food security in Vietnam in the new millennium.

The Vietnamese experience of a sharp fall in the prevalence of undernourish-ment and a rise in calorie consumption in the late 1990s contrasts sharply withthe Indian evidence over this period, as detailed in Sen (2005, table 5) and Ray(2007, table 12). Because India was also pursuing economic reforms over thisperiod, it is hazardous to draw generalized conclusions when comparingchanges in food security and undernourishment in the two countries. Localconditions, such as the nature of the reforms and the presence of nutrientenhancing policies to improve food security and encourage dietary diversity, areimportant. In the new millennium, Vietnam is a more food secure and lessundernourished country than it was in the immediate aftermath of the ‘

Doi Moi

reforms’ of the mid 1980s. Thanks to its particularly impressive performance in

FOOD SECURITY AND DIET IN VIETNAM

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the late 1990s, Vietnam has already met one of the principal targets of itsMillenium Development Goals set at the World summit in 2000; namely,halving its poverty and hunger by 2015. However, as our results show, there isconsiderable scope for more improvement in food security. There have been severalprivate and public initiatives to enhance food security in Vietnam in the 1990s;for example, the Dutch Foundation for the Advancement of Tropical Research(WOTRO), under its program, Nutrition and Health, 1995–1999, undertook aproject entitled ‘Nutritional Status and Health of Women in Relation toHousehold Food Security in Urban and Rural Vietnam.’ The Government ofVietnam, in 1990/1991, formulated a new socioeconomic strategy designed toimprove the nutritional levels of the whole community, for the period up to2000. As Hop’s (2003) recent review of nutrient enhancing programs in Vietnamin the 1990s points out: ‘The intervention program to improve production andconsumption of animal source foods . . . have been successful. The population’sdietary intakes have clearly improved in terms of both quality and quantity.’

The present study pays special attention to dietary diversity and its nutritionalimplications. The importance of dietary diversity as a food security indicator isunderlined by the evidence of Hoddinott and Yohannes (2002), who observethat increased dietary diversity is associated with an increase in food consump-tion and calorie availability. Atmarita (2005) draws, in the Indonesian context,to a possible link between lack of dietary diversity and a range of non-communicable diseases. In the context of developing countries, generally,Allen (2003) emphasizes the importance of interventions that help to controlmicro nutrient malnutrition that arises from a lack of dietary diversity, inparticular, from insufficient intake of animal source foods. A significant featureof the changes in the food consumption pattern in Vietnam in the latter half ofour sample period is the sharp increase in dietary diversity that helped to reducethe excessive dependence on rice as a calorie source in the Vietnamese diet.Rice, which is a source of cheap calories, cannot act as a satisfactory substitutefor animal foods and fats, which provide high quality protein and other nutri-ents. As Dien et al. (2004) point out, ‘the traditional diet in Vietnam is high incarbohydrates and low in fats . . . [T]hese dietary patterns may contribute to thepopulation’s low energy intake.’ Consistent with the cross-country evidence ofHoddinott and Yohannes (2002) cited, there was a sharp increase in both dietarydiversity and calorie intake in Vietnam in the second half of our sample period(1997/1998–2004) after some sluggishness in the earlier part (1993/1994–1997/1998).

The comparison between the poverty and undernourishment estimates thatthis paper reports has considerable policy significance. The recent studies byRay (2007) and Suryaranayana and Silva (2007) both, although drawing differentpolicy conclusions, show that the set of expenditure-poor and food-insecurehouseholds do not always coincide. The former study shows that the dissonancebetween the two measures in India, which increased in the 1990s, posed aproblem for Indian policy-makers because the ‘targeted public distribution


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system’ excluded those households that are deemed non-poor because they areabove the expenditure-based poverty line, but are, nevertheless, undernourishedbecause their calorie intake is less than the recommended minimum dailylevels set by government of India. The fact that Vietnam does so much betteraccording to both measures in the late 1990s has made it easier for theauthorities there to target both the expenditure-poor and the undernourishedhouseholds through comprehensive programs that encompass both these groups.

The rest of the paper is organized as follows. The next section describes thedatasets and reports the movement in per capita consumption and expenditureshares of the various food items over our sample period, 1992/1993–2004.Section III reports the corresponding movement in the calorie intake levels andthe calorie shares of the various food items. Section IV compares expenditurepoverty and undernourishment rates and provides panel evidence on agreement/disagreement between the two measures. Section V reports the results of jointlyestimating the determinants of the calorie shares and calorie intake levels.Section VI presents the food poverty lines that are implied by the resultson calorie intake, and compares them with the official food poverty linesrecommended by Vietnam’s General Statistical Office (GSO). Finally, SectionVII concludes.

II. Data Sources and Dietary Changes in Vietnam

The present study is based on the two Vietnamese Living Standard Surveys(VLSS) that were carried out in 1992/1993 and in 1997/1998 and the VietnameseHousehold Living Standard Survey (VHLSS) of 2004. While the first twosurveys were conducted over a period extending into 2 calendar years, thethird survey was conducted exclusively in 2004. These surveys were part of theLiving Standards Measurement Study household surveys that were conductedin several developing countries with technical assistance from the World Bank.

1

The present study is based on household unit records on food expenses andhome production that are contained in Section 11 of the household question-naire. The VLSS 1992/1993 dataset includes 4800 households, the VLSS 1997/1998 dataset includes 6000 households, and the VHLSS 2004 survey has dataon 9189 households. This study also exploits the fact that approximately4300 households in the first survey were reinterviewed in the second survey,providing us with a panel of 4302 households over the period 1992/1993–1997/1998.

The present study uses quantity and expenditure information on thepurchases of 45 food items. Data were collected separately for the Tet and otherholiday periods, and the rest of the year. The surveys took into account foodconsumption out of self-production by valuing self-produced food at market

1. See World Bank (2000) for a detailed description of the VLSS datasets.


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prices. We combined the 45 food items in aggregate form to obtain a smallerand more manageable 10-item food classification. The quantities consumedwere converted into calorie intake by, first, transforming all units into kilos and,then, applying the FAO conversion factors.

2

In the cases of some minor fooditems (e.g. ‘other sea food,’ and ‘carbonated beverages’) and ‘eating out,’ forwhich quantity information is not available, we followed the practice, adoptedby Dien et al. (2004) and Molini (2006), of converting the available expenditureinformation into calories using the average price of calories to the householdfrom the rest of the food items; that is those for which the quantity informationis available. As pointed out by Dien et al. (2004, p. 44), because the practice ofeating out in Vietnam has increased substantially in recent years, failure toinclude the calories from meals consumed outside the home and from several ofthe smaller food items would have resulted in a serious underestimation ofenergy intake, especially in urban areas.

Table 1 reports the changes in the budget share of food across the variousregions in Vietnam over the period 1992/1993–2004. Consistent with theoverall improvement in living standards in Vietnam, the budget share of fooddeclined in all regions, as predicted by Engel’s Law. The decline was par-ticularly sharp in the latter half of this period, suggesting acceleration in theimprovement of real incomes at the turn of the century. The lower budget shareof food in the urban areas suggests higher real expenditure levels than inrural areas. However, as we report later, urban areas recorded higher levels ofundernourishment than rural area.

2. The details of aggregation (into 10 item classification) and conversion into calorie intake areavailable upon request.

Table 1 The budget share (%) of food across three survey rounds

Region Rural Urban

1992/1993 1997/1998 2004 1992/1993 1997/1998 2004

Red River Delta 66.97 61.54 52.19 51.99 48.88 40.96North East 73.03 66.57 61.28 57.21 50.72 44.27North West 79.85 67.02 68.21 67.18 51.99 44.82North Central Coast 67.47 61.32 54.12 58.95 47.87 42.11South Central Coast 61.98 60.62 50.59 46.3 50.89 43.3Central Highlands 66.9 63.79 53.88 – – 40.95South East 59.43 55.62 48.36 49.23 43.72 40.88Mekong River Delta 57.4 57.46 51.79 52.51 48.3 48.3Overall 65.04 60.6 54.13 51.95 47.58 43.05

Source: Authors’ calculations. This table is based on food expenditure and household expenditureper household as calculated by the General Statistical Office, using the files hhexp92n.dta,hhexp98n.dta and hhexpe04.dta.


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Table 2 reports the changes in the per capita consumption of the food itemsfor which quantity information is available, and the changes in their expenditureshares, along with changes in the expenditure share of ‘eating out’ Tables 3 and4 present the disaggregated picture by reporting the corresponding values forpoor and non-poor households, respectively, which refer to those below andabove the official poverty line, as specified by the GSO of Vietnam (see Tung,

Table 2 Per capita consumption (kg/month) of food items and their shares of food expenditure

Food item Per capita consumption (kg/month)

Rural Urban

1992/1993 1997/1998 2004 1992/1993 1997/1998 2004

Rice 18.31 17.75 18.45 14.73 12.93 13.91Wheat 0.18 0.30 0.12 0.85 0.72 0.30Other cereals 1.08 1.03 1.39 0.91 1.14 1.47Vegetables 7.58 5.18 3.97 5.55 5.10 3.73Fruits 1.61 1.89 1.22 2.86 2.60 1.54Meats 1.00 1.48 1.79 1.75 2.18 2.37Fish 1.26 1.51 1.75 1.78 1.60 1.89Dairy 0.01 0.04 0.10 0.08 0.19 0.39Alcoholic beverages 0.44 0.63 0.92 0.52 0.70 1.05Other items 1a 0.61 0.69 2.48 0.65 0.74 2.94

Share of total food expenditure (%)

1992/1993 1997/1998 2004 1992/1993 1997/1998 2004

Rice 73.92 69.42 33.74 82.29 79.89 20.33Wheat 0.33 0.59 0.35 0.83 0.69 0.65Other cereals 2.53 2.08 2.99 0.65 0.83 2.46Vegetables 4.55 4.16 3.08 1.72 1.88 2.94Fruits 2.34 3.04 1.49 4.91 3.83 2.10Meats 8.13 10.26 19.97 4.19 5.53 21.78Fish 4.30 4.94 9.62 2.70 2.56 10.03Dairy 0.05 0.16 0.67 0.12 0.48 1.90Alcoholic beverages 1.23 1.70 2.29 0.90 1.23 2.48Other items 2b 2.62 3.50 18.25 1.68 2.53 18.04Eating outc 0.00 0.14 7.54 0.0004 0.56 17.29

Notes: a Other items 1 includes items that cannot be categorized into any of the main categoriesbut quantity information was available for them (e.g. cake, candied fruits, sweets, salt,sugar, and coffee). b Other items 2 includes all commodities under Other items 1 plus thosecommodities for which quantity information was not given but only the expenditure figureswere given (e.g. other sea food, carbonated beverages, and items classified as ‘others’ in thequestionnaire) but excluding food eaten outside. c Eating out refers to the food consumedoutside home (i.e. purchased pre-cooked meal).


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unpublished data). The disaggregated picture provides additional insight intothe movements of per capita consumption of the various food items acrossyears. For example, while the non-poor households in rural areas registeredan increase in their per capita rice consumption in the late 1990s, the rural poorhouseholds registered a marginal decline. In contrast, in urban areas, bothgroups of households recorded an increase in rice consumption in the second

Table 3 Per capita consumption (kg/month) of food items and their shares of food expenditure (for poor households)


Rural Urban

1992/1993 1997/1998 2004 1992/1993 1997/1998 2004



1992/1993 1997/1998 2004 1992/1993 1997/1998 2004

Rice 62.89 58.25 48.04 54.40 48.28 37.91Wheat 0.24 0.67 0.15 1.69 1.09 0.55Other cereals 4.08 3.10 3.56 2.34 2.22 3.34Vegetables 6.88 6.54 3.37 6.17 6.35 3.32Fruits 2.53 3.92 1.07 9.91 10.29 1.30Meats 11.99 13.49 14.20 8.11 11.98 17.53Fish 5.82 6.77 7.83 6.81 7.76 9.35Dairy 0.03 0.13 0.27 0.21 1.07 0.65Alcoholic beverages 1.64 2.06 1.68 1.37 2.22 1.65Other items 2b 3.89 4.95 17.96 8.99 6.91 18.72Eating outc 0.00 0.11 1.85 0.00 1.82 5.69

Notes: a Other items 1 includes items that cannot be categorized into any of the main categories butquantity information was available for them (e.g. cake, candid fruits, sweets, salt, sugar, andcoffee). b Other items 2 includes all commodities under Other items 1 plus those commoditiesfor which quantity information was not given but only the expenditure figures were given(e.g. other sea food, carbonated beverages, and items classified as ‘others’ in the ques-tionnaire) but excluding food eaten outside. c Eating out refers to the food consumed outsidehome (i.e. purchased pre-cooked meal).


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half of our period of study, with the increase being much larger for the poor.The changes in the expenditure shares of the various components of foodspending revealed in the lower half of these tables have been much sharper thanthe changes in quantities, especially for the non-poor households. Moreover, thechanges were uneven between the earlier and the latter part of the 1990s, withthe turn of the century witnessing some dramatic changes. The sharp difference

Table 4 Per capita consumption (kg/month) of food items and their shares of food expenditure (for non-poor households)


Rural Urban

1992/1993 1997/1998 2004 1992/1993 1997/1998 2004



1992/1993 1997/1998 2004 1992/1993 1997/1998 2004

Rice 77.27 72.87 31.68 83.38 81.22 18.31Wheat 0.36 0.57 0.38 0.80 0.67 0.66Other cereals 2.06 1.76 2.91 0.59 0.77 2.36Vegetables 3.84 3.43 3.04 1.55 1.69 2.90Fruits 2.29 2.76 1.55 4.72 3.55 2.19Meats 6.96 9.27 20.80 4.04 5.25 22.27Fish 3.83 4.38 9.88 2.54 2.35 10.11Dairy 0.06 0.17 0.73 0.12 0.46 2.04Alcoholic beverages 1.11 1.59 2.38 0.88 1.19 2.58Other items 2b 2.24 3.05 18.29 1.40 2.35 17.96Eating out c 0.00 0.14 8.36 0.00 0.50 18.62

Notes: a Other items 1 includes items that cannot be categorized into any of the main categoriesbut quantity information was available for them (e.g. cake, candid fruits, sweets, salt, sugar,and coffee). b Other items 2 includes all commodities under Other items 1 plus thosecommodities for which quantity information was not given but only the expenditure figureswere given (e.g. other sea food, carbonated beverages, and items classified as ‘others’ in thequestionnaire) but excluding food eaten outside. c Eating out refers to the food consumedoutside home (i.e. purchased pre-cooked meal).


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between poor and non-poor households in this respect is quite noticeable; forexample, although there has been a gentle decline in the share of rice in thefood expenditure of poor households throughout the period spanned by thethree surveys, the decline in the case of non-poor households, especially urbanones, over the period 1997/1998–2004, was dramatic. Part of this decline can beexplained by the sharp increase in the share of total food expenditure thatwas spent on the minor food items, referred to as ‘other items 2,’ and on mealsconsumed outside the home. Rural poor households do not display increases ofsimilar magnitude in their practice of ‘eating out.’ A large portion of the mealsconsumed outside the home is rice, which provides a partial explanation for thesharp decline in the food expenditure share of rice among non-poor households.Nevertheless, the figures in Table 4 do reflect a significant switch in the dietarypattern of nonpoor households from rice to meat, fish and diary products, asconfirmed by the increase in the physical consumption of these latter items forsuch households. The difference between poor and non-poor households isagain evident from the general decline in the consumption of fruits, meats, fishand dairy products by the households below the poverty line (see Table 3). Inother words, the diversification in Vietnamese dietary habits, as witnessed inthis period, has been much more profound for non-poor than poor households,especially in urban areas.

III. Calorie Implications of the Dietary Changes

We also calculated the nutritional implications of the changes in the nature offood spending and found that the calorie shares of the various items are mirrorimages of Tables 2–4. There has been a decline in the calorie share of rice,particularly for the non poor, consistent with the earlier discussion. Even takinginto account the fact that rice was being increasingly consumed in 2004 as apart of ‘eating out,’ these figures do confirm a decline in the calorie andexpenditure shares of this item, consistent with the overall picture of greaterdiversification of the Vietnamese diet. Note, however, unlike the Indian diet(see Ray, 2007) and the Indonesian diet (see Molyneaux and Rosner, 2004), theVietnamese diet, even in the new millennium, is concentrated on a few items,with nearly two-thirds of the calorie intake coming from rice, wheat and othercereal items alone. A comparison with the Indian evidence presented in Ray(2007) shows that even urban non-poor households in Vietnam generally haveless diversified diets (both in expenditure and calorie share terms) than theaverage Indian household. The excessive dependence on rice as a caloriesource in Vietnam (55–65 percent) stands in sharp contrast with that in India(35–45 percent). This lack of diversification is particularly evident in the foodexpenditure of poor Vietnamese households, who, even in 2004, were gettingover 70 percent of their total calorie intake from rice alone.

The median figures for per capita daily calorie intake in the various regionsand for Vietnam as a whole are presented in the top half of Table 5, with the


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corresponding figures for ‘food expenditure poor’ households (i.e. those belowthe food expenditure poverty line) reported in the lower half of the table. Thehousehold size deflator, used to calculate the per capita figures, is the equiva-lence scale specification used by White and Masset (2002)

3

. After registering a

3. There are many equivalence scales proposed in the household expenditure literature, includingthat proposed by White and Masset (2002). A summary of other methods of calculating equivalencescales can be found in Fernández-Villaverde and Krueger (2007). The rationale for choosing themethod proposed by White and Masset (2002) in the current study is that White and Massethave tested their method on Vietnamese data and found that ignoring such equivalence scales canhave serious implications for poverty estimates. (The authors would like to thank an anonymousreferee for suggesting this to us).

Table 5 Median kilo calories consumed (per capita per day) by various population groups

Region Whole population

Rural Urban

1992/1993 1997/1998 2004 1992/1993 1997/1998 2004

Red River Delta 2622.67 2670.70 3238.82 2178.76 2183.79 2888.87North East 2761.59 2839.11 3478.96 2461.38 2513.59 2956.74North West 2910.22 2639.34 3380.56 2584.01 2458.74 2847.54North Central Coast 2337.41 2549.33 3047.84 2481.12 2337.77 2831.94South Central Coast 2316.50 2363.24 2978.69 2120.81 2054.02 2738.13Central Highlands 2666.17 2549.94 3386.35 2846.55South East 2532.40 2499.61 3078.76 1856.22 1779.07 2591.45Mekong River Delta 2586.80 2402.60 3135.70 2178.93 2079.25 2925.76Overall 2571.39 2553.00 3205.61 2164.62 2038.94 2823.92

Region Food poor householdsa

Rural Urban

1992/1993 1997/1998 2004 1992/1993 1997/1998 2004

Red River Delta 2451.02 2389.82 2509.16 1961.45 2624.89North East 2360.88 2485.44 2724.80 2737.46 2713.25North West 2512.68 2251.09 2936.97 2393.93North Central Coast 2235.78 2354.54 2444.81 2377.88 2244.38 2666.10South Central Coast 2058.36 2208.59 2249.37 1655.73 1541.32 2287.45Central Highlands 2361.64 2367.47 2724.28 2702.66South East 1944.47 2087.07 2212.30 1284.49 1117.20 1889.71Mekong River Delta 2194.10 2183.23 2234.81 1620.34 1717.67 2358.30Overall 2318.86 2287.37 2505.03 1660.70 1691.56 2455.18

Source: Authors’ calculations. Note: a Food poor household as defined by General Statistical Officefood poverty line and using effective household size.


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small decline in calorie intake in most regions in the early to mid-1990s, therewas a sharp increase in the same in the period from the late 1990s to the middleof the present decade. This improvement in calorie consumption levels hasoccurred for both poor and non-poor households. Note, however, the significantrural–urban difference in the magnitude and trend in calorie consumption. Therural household has consistently enjoyed higher calorie intake than its urbancounterpart. However, while the rural poor recorded a marginal increase in theircalorie consumption over the whole period, the corresponding increase in thecase of the urban poor was spectacular, with most of this increase occurring inthe latter half of this period. These figures provide support for the findingreported in Hoddinott and Yohannes (2002), based on cross-country data, thatan increase in dietary diversity is associated with an increase in calorie intake.The sharp increase in calorie consumption in Vietnam in the latter half of oursample period can be compared with the increase in calorie intake in Indonesia,although of much smaller magnitude (7 percent), over a similar period, 1999–2002, reported in Molyneaux and Rosner (2004). The increase in Indonesiancalorie consumption in the late 1990s occurred after the recording of a declineof similar proportion (8 percent) over the period 1996–99, not unlike theVietnamese experience. Another point of similarity between the Vietnameseand the Indonesian calorie experiences in the late 1990s and the turn of thecentury is that a large part of these calorie increases can be attributed to smallerfood items, such as processed foods and prepared foods and drinks (seeMolyneaux and Rosner, 2004, table 4). Moreover, in both Indonesia andVietnam, the second half of the 1990s and the early part of the new millenniumwitnessed a greater diversification in diet. In view of the finding of Atmarita(2005) that lack of dietary diversity leads to iron and iodine deficiency, thegreater share of calories from non-cereal items, such as meat, fish and dairyproducts, in the Vietnamese and Indonesian diets in the late 1990s and the firsthalf of the present decade is a significant positive development.

IV. Comparison of Undernourishment and Poverty Rates

Following the definition adopted by Vietnam’s GSO in calculating the povertyline, we consider a household to be undernourished if its per ‘adult equivalent’daily calorie intake is less than 2100 kcals. Table 6 presents the percentage ofhouseholds that are undernourished in the various regions, using the originaldaily calorie requirements of 2100 kcals in the top half, and 80% of thisrequirement in the bottom half. After a period of sluggishness and a smalldecline in the prevalence of undernourishment (POU) rate in the first half of the1990s, there was sharp decline in the POU rate in all regions in the secondhalf of the 1990s that continued into the new millennium. Consistent with thehigher calorie consumption levels in rural areas, as noted earlier, urban POUrates exceeded the rural POU rates throughout the study period, although thedifference narrowed sharply by 2004. Note, incidentally, that unlike the Indian


236


Planning Commission, which follows expert advice of Indian Council ofMedical Research (ICMR, 2002) in specifying a higher daily calorie requirement(2400 kcals) in rural areas in recognition of the more onerous rural workloadin relation to the urban workload, Vietnam’s GSO specifies the same dailyrequirement (2100 kcals) in rural and urban areas. Consequently, the rural POUrates in Vietnam are likely to be downward biased in relation to those in ruralIndia.

4

A comparison of the top and bottom halves of Table 6 reveals that arelaxation of the daily calorie requirements by 20 percent leads to a proportion-ately greater decline in the POU rate in rural areas than in urban areas. Thissuggests that throughout the 1990s and the early part of the new millennium,a much greater proportion of the undernourished households in urban areasthan in rural areas could be characterized as ‘severely undernourished’; that is,with a per capita daily calorie intake level of less than 1680 kcals.

4. Alternatively, as Sen (2005) points out, several nutritionists have argued that India’s calorierequirements are excessive which, if true, would imply that her POU rates are biased upwards.

Table 6 The percentage of households that are undernourished: Prevalence of undernourishment rates

Region Based on (actual calories < required calories) criterion

Rural Urban

1992/1993 1997/1998 2004 1992/1993 1997/1998 2004


Based on (actual calories < 0.8 × required calories) criterion



237


How does the POU rate compare with the conventional expenditure povertyrate (POV) that has been calculated using the poverty lines specified by theGSO? The former has been referred to as the ‘direct method’ and the latter asthe ‘indirect method’ in poverty measurement (see Reddy, 2007). Theoretically,the two rates should coincide because the GSO poverty line is defined as thecost of a basket of items that yields 2100 kcals daily. However, as Ray andLancaster (2005) find for India, with large dietary changes and a shift frominexpensive to more expensive calorie sources, the calorie inflation can bedifferent from the consumer price inflation that is used to update the povertylines, leading to dissonance between the POU and POV rates. Table 6 providesVietnamese evidence on this issue by reporting the total expenditure povertyrates in the top half and the food poverty rate in the bottom half using the GSOspecified poverty lines. A comparison of the top half of Table 6 with the bottomhalf of Table 7 shows that, for Vietnam as a whole, the POU and the food POV

Table 7 The percentage of households that are poor: Prevalence of undernourishment rates

Region Based on (per capita expenditurea < poverty line) criterion

Rural Urban

1992/1993 1997/1998 2004 1992/1993 1997/1998 2004


Based on (per capita food expenditure < food poverty line) criterion


Notes: a The per capita expenditure is obtained by using the ‘effective household size’ as theequivalence scale based size deflator, where ehhsize = (number of adults + 0.65 × numberof kids)0.85.


238


rates are not too dissimilar in rural areas although there are several regionaldifferences between the two rates. However, by 2004, the rural food POV rateshad exceeded the rural POU rates, with the direct method recording a muchlarger decline than the indirect method during the period 1997/1998–2004. Thepicture is quite different in urban areas, with the POU rates showing a muchgreater level of undernourishment than is suggested by the (POV). Note,however, that by 2004, the difference between the POU and food POV rates hadnarrowed sharply, with a sharp decline in the POU rates in the late 1990s. Anotherresult worth noting from Table 7 is that in the second half of the 1990s and inthe new millennium, the food poverty rate in Vietnam consistently exceeded thetotal expenditure poverty rate, in contrast to the situation in 1992/1993. Thissuggests that, voluntary or otherwise, there was a shift in spending by the poorfrom food to non-food items. In 2004, in urban Vietnam as a whole, for example,while total expenditure figures indicate there was hardly any poverty (0.72%),the magnitude of food poverty, although low, was not negligible (10.31%).

The dissonance between the ‘direct method’ (POU) and the ‘indirect method’(POV) further highlighted in Table 8, which exploits the fact that the 1992/1993and 1997/1998 VLSS data sets contain a panel of 4302 households that appearin both surveys.

5

Table 8 allows a direct comparison between a household’s foodexpenditure poverty status,

P

(

P

<

0 if below the poverty line;

>

0, otherwise)and its nutritional status

D

, (

D

<

0, if below the calorie requirement;

>

0,otherwise) by providing a breakdown, separately for 1992/1993 and 1997/1998,between the four alternative combinations of

P

and

D of this panel. The

5. This feature was lost in the 2004 survey, in which this panel was not reinterviewed.

Table 8 Breakdown (%) of households based on a combination of nutritional (D) and food poverty (P) Status between 1992/1993 and 1997/1998a,b

1992/1993

D < 0 D > 0

Pb < 0 6.93% (298) 12.18% (524)P > 0 19.57% (842) 61.30% (2638)

1997/1998

D < 0 D > 0

P < 0 6.78% (292) 13.13% (565)P > 0 19.04% (819) 61.04% (2626)

Notes: a D = Total calories consumed − Required minimum calorie intake b In calculating P, the food expenditure deflator was set at: (number of adults + 0.65 ×number of children)0.85.

FOOD SECURITY AND DIET IN VIETNAM 239


off-diagonal elements in each matrix show the percentage of households whosestatus differs between the ‘indirect’ (POV) and ‘direct’ (POU) methods. Thepercentage of households who are undernourished but lie above the foodexpenditure poverty line (D < 0, P > 0) exceed, in each year, the percentage ofhouseholds who fall in the reverse category (D > 0, P < 0). Quite remarkably,the elements of the matrix showing the magnitude of agreement/disagreementbetween the two measures were stable between 1992/1993 and 1997/1998.Note, also, that a small but non-negligible percentage of households (approx-imately 7 percent) suffered from both undernourishment and food expenditurepoverty in both years.

Table 9 reports the change in the nutritional status of these householdsbetween 1992/1993 and 1997/1998 by presenting the transition matrix D betweenthe 2 years. Approximately 14 percent of the households improved theirnutritional status and a similar percentage saw a worsening from a well-nourished to an undernourished state. Because the 2004 VHLSS dataset doesnot contain information on the panel, we are unable to extend the transitionmatrix to include 2004. However, based on the results presented earlier, wewould expect the percentage of households recording an improvement in theirnutritional status (D < 0 in 1993, D > 0 in 2004) to have gone up significantly.

V. Determinants of Calorie Shares of Food Items and Calorie Intake

The Vietnamese evidence presented above points to dietary diversity as anindicator of improvement in living standards. The sharp changes in food habitsin Vietnam in the late 1990s saw a more balanced diet, both in expenditure

Table 9 Transition matrix of nutritional status between 1992/1993 and 1997/1998a,b

A. Based on World Health Organization recommended minimum calorie requirement

D < 0 in 1993 D > 0 in 1993

D < 0 in 1998 11.87% (511) 13.94% (600)D > 0 in 1998 14.62% (629) 59.55% (2562)

B. Based on a downward adjustment (20%) to the calorie requirement in 1997/1998

D < 0 in 1993 D > 0 in 1993

D < 0 in 1998 2.37% (102) 6.34% (273)D > 0 in 1998 8.16% (351) 83.12% (3576)

Notes: a The elements in the matrix denote the percentage of households satisfying thecorresponding sequence of nutritional status in the two periods. b The numbers in bracketsdenote the number of households.

ASIAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL 240


share and calorie terms, than seen previously. The nutritional content of theVietnamese diet improved not only in terms of the calorie consumption levels,which increased considerably, but also with respect to the quality of the caloriesconsumed. With the decrease in the calorie share of rice from the very highlevels of the early 1990s and an increase in that of meat, fish and dairyproducts, the Vietnamese diet is now richer in protein and other nutrients. Thisraises the issue of the principal determinants of the calorie composition of thediet. Although the empirical demand literature has devoted much attention toanalyzing food expenditure patterns by estimating conventional demandsystems in budget share form, relatively less attention has been paid to thedeterminants of changes in the calorie shares of the food items. As theVietnamese evidence shows, there were some fairly large changes in the late1990s, especially for non-poor households, in the calorie composition by foodsource in the Vietnamese diet.

Table 10 provides evidence on the issue by reporting the instrumentalvariables estimates from the joint estimation of the calorie shares and calorieintake levels on the pooled data from the three surveys contained in the presentstudy. To enable easier estimation and a simplified analysis, we aggregated thefood items into five groups; namely, rice (i = 1), wheat and other cereals (i = 2),fruit and vegetables (i = 3), fish, meat and dairy products (i = 4) and alcoholicbeverages, other items and eating out (i = 5). The five calorie shares, along withthe per capita calorie intake (in logarithmic form), were jointly regressed on aset of regional, ethnic, household and other characteristics, with the per capitafood expenditure (in logarithmic form) instrumented to control for possibleendogeneity.

The time dummies for years 1997/1998 and 2004 (using year 1992/1993 as acontrol group) were included to capture time-varying unobserved factors, suchas price changes, policy interventions and lifestyle changes. The estimated timedummy coefficients are always highly significant, confirming that, over theperiod spanned by the three surveys, the calorie shares of rice, wheat and othercereals, and fruits and vegetables fell, whereas that of fish, meat and dairy,and meals consumed outside the home increased. The large changes came froma sharp decline in the calorie share of rice compensated by an equally largeincrease in the share of calories from meals consumed outside the home.Because eating out allows a more varied selection of food items, including rice,vegetables and meat, than just rice cooked at home, this shift in calorie com-position would have led to a more balanced intake of micronutrients and aqualitatively better calorie intake than previously.

Along with urbanization, the increasing educational level of the householdhead and increasing household affluence, as reflected in the rising levels ofper capita food expenditure, played a strong and positive role in dietarydiversification by reducing the calorie share of rice and increasing that of fish,meat and dairy products. The generally significant estimates of the regional andethnic dummy coefficients provide evidence of significant variation in dietary

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Table 10 Instrumental variables regressions: The determinants of calorie shares and calorie intake (calorie share estimates)a

Rice Wheat and other cereals

Fruits and vegetables

Fish, meat and dairy

Alcoholic beverages, other items, eating out

Log (per capita calorie intake)

Regional dummiesb

North East −1.078*(0.332)

2.138*(0.181)

0.028(0.119)

−0.021(0.095)

−1.067*(0.209)

0.123*(0.016)

North West 4.644*(0.771)

−2.118*(0.420)

1.409*(0.276)

−0.595*(0.221)

−3.340*(0.485)

0.325*(0.037)

North Central Coast 0.770*(0.292)

−0.397**(0.159)

1.021*(0.104)

−0.637*(0.084)

−0.757*(0.184)

−0.053*(0.014)

South Central Coast −0.597(0.314)

−0.662*(0.172)

0.555*(0.112)

−0.511*(0.090)

1.214*(0.198)

−0.091*(0.015)

Central Highlands 2.666*(0.527)

−1.769*(0.269)

−0.993*(0.176)

−0.199(0.141)

0.295(0.311)

0.135*(0.024)

South East −2.389*(0.527)

−0.272(0.287)

−0.271(0.188)

0.851*(0.151)

2.082*(0.332)

0.138*(0.025)

Mekong River Delta 0.862*(0.342)

−1.761*(0.187)

−0.526*(0.112)

0.894*(0.098)

1.306*(0.215)

0.067*(0.016)

Ethnic dummiesc

Kinh 8.198*(0.423)

−6.898*(0.258)

−3.419*(0.169)

1.149*(0.136)

0.969*(0.298)

0.151*(0.023)

Tay 10.641*(0.679)

−6.910*(0.371)

−3.496*(0.243)

1.054*(0.195)

−1.289*(0.428)

0.185*(0.033)

Chinese 7.019*(0.844)

−6.641*(0.461)

−2.872*(0.302)

2.281*(0.242)

0.213(0.532)

0.009(0.041)

Khmer 12.291*(0.785)

−7.805*(0.428)

−4.038*(0.281)

0.301(0.225)

−0.749(0.494)

0.088**(0.038)

Muong 4.240*(0.738)

−5.274*(0.403)

−0.053(0.264)

0.174(0.212)

0.914**(0.465)

0.068(0.035)

Nung 9.434*(0.814)

−6.783*(0.444)

−3.654*(0.291)

0.702*(0.233)

0.301(0.513)

0.145*(0.039)

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Other dummiesTime Dummy (1997–1998)

−1.252**(0.539)

−0.522(0.294)

−1.692*(0.193)

1.773*(0.155)

1.692*(0.339)

0.262*(0.026)

Time Dummy (2004) −16.097*(0.208)

−0.859*(0.114)

−3.096*(0.074)

1.408*0.059

18.644*(0.131)

0.249*(0.009)

Female Headed household

0.419**(0.195)

0.347*(0.106)

−0.019(0.069)

0.047(0.056)

−0.795*(0.123)

−0.044*(0.009)

Urban Dummy −6.593*(0.506)

1.636*(0.276)

0.078(0.181)

2.112*(0.145)

2.768*(0.319)

0.118*(0.024)

Other characteristicsNumber of adults 0.939*

(0.073)−0.239*(0.040)

−0.176*(0.026)

−0.232*(0.021)

−0.292*(0.046)

0.032*(0.004)

Number of children 1.337*(0.073)

−0.271*(0.040)

−0.051(0.026)

−0.313*(0.021)

−0.702*(0.046)

0.035*(0.004)

Educated household head

−0.825*(0.089)

−0.077(0.048)

−0.012(0.032)

0.343*(0.026)

0.570*(0.056)

0.041*(0.004)

Log (Per capita food expenditure)

−2.498*(0.815)

1.055**(0.445)

0.215(0.292)

0.329(0.234)

0.899(0.513)

−0.435*(0.039)

Constant 89.414e

(5.586)5.067

(3.047)7.372e

(1.998)0.727

(1.601)−2.581(3.518)

16.661e

(0.268)Number of observation: 19 984 19 984 19 984 19 984 19 984 19 984F-Statistics: 664.86 116.96 163.93 296.51 1678.05 91.30Prob(F-Statistic): 0 0 0 0 0 0R2: 0.9763 0.4645 0.4680 0.759 0.8486 0.9985Sargan statistics: 75.527 20.934 10.594 28.937 62.804 15.690Chi-sq(4) P-val: 0 0.0008 0.0600 0 0 0.0078

Notes: * and ** indicate significance at the 1% and 5% level, respectively. a Standard errors in brackets. b Red River Delta is the reference region. c The smaller ethnicgroups which have been grouped together as the ‘Other Ethnic Groups’ is the reference ethnic group. e The Instruments used in the instrumental variables-regression were: (i) Irrigated annual crop land available to household (owned/allocated/rented) in M2; (ii) Un-irrigated annual crop land available to household(owned/allocated/rented) in M2; (iii) Total water surface used by household for aquaculture (M2); (iv) Amount of social subsidies received by householdin past 12 months (in thousand dongs); and (v) Amount of dowry and lottery money received by household in past 12 months (in thousand and Dongs)

Rice Wheat and other cereals

Fruits and vegetables

Fish, meat and dairy

Alcoholic beverages, other items, eating out

Log (per capita calorie intake)

Table 10 (continued )



practices between the various regions and ethnic groups in Vietnam. For example,in relation to residents in the numeraire region, Red River Delta, those in NorthWest and Central Highlands regions have a less diversified calorie source, withrice providing a greater share of the calories. In relation to the smaller ethnicgroups, which constitute the numeraire group, all other groups obtain a greatershare of their calorie intake from rice, fish, meat and dairy products. Householdsize and composition have a strong impact on the household’s diet, with largersized households deriving more of their calories from rice and less from otheritems.

The estimated coefficients of the per capita calorie intake equation, whichare all highly significant, are of policy interest. The significant and positiveestimate of the coefficient of the time dummy shows that, due to unobservedpolicy changes and/or life style changes, there has been an increase in calorieconsumption by the Vietnamese household. Other factors that have played apositive role in the calorie increase include increased urbanization andimproved literacy levels of the household head. In relation to the miscellaneoussmaller ethnic groups, which constitute the numeraire ethnic group, the othersenjoy higher calorie consumption. A female-headed household consumes fewercalories, as do smaller sized households.

Another result of interest is the strong negative impact of increased outlayon food on the calorie intake of households. With increasing affluence, thehousehold’s dietary habits change from consumption of an item such as rice,which is an inexpensive calorie source, to items such as fruit, vegetables,fish, meat and dairy products, which produce qualitatively superior but moreexpensive calories. Consequently, the calorie consumption level tends to fallwith income growth, which has occurred in India [see Ray (2007)]. However,unlike the Indian experience, in Vietnam, the factors that play the strongestrole in increasing calorie intake, such as education of the household head andurbanization, helped to counteract this negative impact and to improve calorieintake. This was especially true for the second half of our sample period;namely, from 1997/1998–2004. Consequently, as noted by Hop (2003), in thenew millennium, the Vietnamese diet has shown both an increase in calorie con-sumption and a receives a qualitatively superior supply of calories underpinnedby a richer variety of nutrients. We should recall, however, that this improve-ment in calorie intake, both quantitatively and qualitatively (as underpinned bya more diversified diet), has occurred more for households above the foodexpenditure poverty line and less for those below it. Hence, notwithstanding thesignificant gains, there is scope for more policy-induced improvements to thedietary habits of the less affluent households in the years ahead.

VI. Implications for Food Poverty Lines in Vietnam

There are several ways of arriving at the food poverty line. In the present study,we follow the approach adopted by Vietnam’s GSO, which defines the food



poverty line as the cost of acquiring a basket of food necessary to meet theminimum calorific requirements. In operational terms, it is defined as the costof ‘a basket of food items that is deemed to be necessary to ensure goodnutritional status, [taking] into account the food consumption patterns ofVietnamese households’ (World Bank, 2000, p. 146). As pointed out by Whiteand Masset (2002), a common figure used by the World Bank for average(daily) calorie requirements is 2100 calories. In the calculations reportedbelow, we define the food poverty line as the median per equivalent adult foodexpenditure of all households with per equivalent adult daily calorie intakebetween 2000 and 2200 calories.

Because, as reported above, there have been large rural–urban and provincialvariations in food and calorie consumption in Vietnam, one would expect thefood poverty lines, thus constructed, to show large regional and temporalvariations as well. This is confirmed by Table 11 which reports the annual foodpoverty lines calculated for the three survey rounds used in the present study.Note, however, that the GSO food poverty lines in the 1990s were set uniquelyfor the whole of Vietnam and did not distinguish between the rural andurban areas or between the provinces. The GSO introduced rural–urbanvariation in the food poverty lines in the new millennium, but did not allowany provincial variation, contrary to the picture portrayed in Table 11. ForVietnam as a whole, the rural and urban food poverty lines in 2004, reported inTable 11, are quite close to those published by the GSO (see footnote of Table11). This is also true of the rural food poverty line in 1997/1998; however, thereare wide divergences in other cases, especially between the urban food poverty

Table 11 Annual food poverty line based on the median household food expenditure of households consuming between 2000 and 2200 kcal per capita per day

Region Rural Urban

1992/1993 1997/1998 2004 1992/1993 1997/1998 2004

Red River Delta 591 1112 1445 3448 5114 1304North East 959 2436 1299 2947 5067 1417North West 1444 4391 739 – – 1653North Central Coast 1121 1321 1064 – 3036 1814South Central Coast 805 981 1600 1378 2723 1993Central Highlands 1275 909 1031 2591South East 1340 1418 1868 1667 5937 2644Mekong River Delta 1402 1816 1853 3278 2586 1665Overall 925 1235 1395 2665 3830 1880

Notes: Expressed in 1000 VND. The corresponding GSO food poverty line is 749 for 1992/1993 is,1286 for 1998 and 1488 (Rural), 1956 (Urban) for 2004. GSO does not publish the regionalpoverty lines for each region. These poverty lines are based on 12 month per capita foodexpenditure.



lines in 1992/1993 and 1997/1998 on the one hand and that recommended bythe GSO on the other. We found that the proximity between the poverty linescalculated in the present study and the GSO poverty line is closest in 2004,especially if we ignore the provincial variation that is not allowed in the officialpoverty lines.

VII. Summary and Conclusion

Following an indifferent performance in the late 1970s and the first half of the1980s, Vietnam undertook a series of policy reforms that, by all accounts, ledto a sharp rise in living standards and a steep decline in total expenditurepoverty during the first half of the 1990s. Much of this evidence is based onpoverty rates calculated from household expenditure data contained in twoVLSS conducted in 1992/1993 and 1997/1998. The present paper extends thepublished literature by providing evidence on the Vietnamese experience offood security, undernourishment and poverty in the period from the late 1990sto the early part of the new millennium.

The present study is based on the 2004 VHLSS dataset in conjunction withthe 1992/1993 and 1997/1998 VLSS datasets used in earlier investigations.This paper provides Vietnamese evidence on the interrelated issues of trends infood consumption, calorie intake, dietary diversity, undernourishment andexpenditure-based poverty during the period, 1992/1993–2004, which isspanned by the three VLSS. Our study compares the POU rate with theconventional POV rate. It exploits the panel nature of the first two surveys andtracks the nutritional and poverty status of the panel of 4302 householdsbetween 1992/1993 and 1997/1998. Other features of this study include anattempt to examine the link between dietary diversity and undernourishment,and an investigation of the key determinants of calorie shares and calorieintake in a joint estimation of them on a set of household, regional and ethniccharacteristics.

The principal conclusion of the present study is that there have been sig-nificant changes, both qualitative and quantitative, in the nature of foodconsumption, leading to sharp declines in undernourishment (POU) andpoverty (POV) rates in the second half of our study period: 1997/1998–2004.This contradicts the evidence from the earlier period, 1992/1993–1997/1998,which witnessed a sharp fall in expenditure poverty, although not in undernour-ishment, and there were no significant increases in the quantity consumed of thestaple food item, rice, or in the level of calorie intake. Consequently, there wasa dissonance between the picture on food security, calorie consumption andundernourishment on one hand, and that based on expenditure-based povertymeasures on the other. This posed a problem for the policy-makers because,with the largely non-overlapping sets of food insecure and expenditure poorhouseholds, targeted interventions aimed at the conventionally defined poormight have been excluding large numbers of food insecure and undernourished



households. However, the situation changed significantly as we moved to the late1990s and the new millennium, when there was convergence between the alternativemeasures of deprivation. There was also close proximity of the calorie-basedfood poverty line for 2004, as calculated in our study with that recommendedby the GSO, unlike in the 1990s. There was a sharp increase in calorie intakeaccompanied by large declines in both POU and POV. An exception is the risein urban food expenditure poverty in most regions during the late 1990s andin the new millennium.

Another positive feature of the changes in food consumption during the late1990s is that the Vietnamese diet became more diverse, with a reduction in itsexcessive dependence on rice, both as a source of calories and in terms of itsshare of food expenditure, and a simultaneous increase in the calorie andexpenditure share of meat, fish and dairy products. The increased diversity ofthe Vietnamese diet implied that not only did the calorie intake increase in thelatter half of our sample period, but that the calories were qualitatively superiorto those consumed earlier due to the increased inflow of protein and othernutrients from animal products. The Vietnamese experience draws attention tothe importance of increased dietary diversity in securing calorie improvements,through a policy of nutrient-enhancing programs and promoting awareness.This experience can provide vital lessons for countries such as India, whichhave witnessed declines in calorie intake in an era of significant economicgrowth and income increases. The regression results point to the useful role thatpolicy interventions and increasing literacy can play in enhancing both thequality and quantity of nutrient intake. These results suggest that relying onincome increase alone is unlikely to secure large improvement in calorieconsumption or lead to more balanced diets.

This paper also presents disaggregated evidence that suggests that theimpressive advances in food security, increased dietary diversity and calorieintake in Vietnam in the new millennium has occurred much more at the topend of the expenditure distribution than for those below the poverty line.Clearly, there is considerable scope for more targeted policy measures to ensurethat the improvements in Vietnamese food security, that the new millennium hasushered in, are extended to the entire population. The fact that there is nowmuch greater overlap between the sets of foods insecure and expenditure poorhouseholds has made targeted interventions easier and more effective thanbefore.

The current study can be extended into various directions of future research.One possible direction of future research could be to use alternative equivalencescales to adjust for household size and to study the sensitivity of results.6

6. A summary of alternative equivalence scales can be found in Fernández-Villaverde andKrueger (2007).



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Dietary Diversity, Food Security and Undernourishment: The Vietnamese Evidence