The unpaid care work (UCW) burden contributes to gender inequality in Vietnam. A survey by ActionAid Vietnam (AVV) and the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA) shows that women spend, on average, 4.06 hours a day doing unpaid care work compared to the corresponding time of men 2.36 hours a day (AVV and MOLISA, 2017). Gender-related evidence in infrastructure investment has confirmed the difference in participation, use, and benefit from the infrastructure work of men and women. Such difference relates to gender inequality in the household labour division, decision-making power, ownership, as well as other cultural barriers (ADB, 2019). Meanwhile, assessments on gender integration in the two National Target Programs (NPT) on Sustainable Poverty Reduction (NTP-SPR) and New Rural Development (NTP-SRD) in 2016-2020 show that infrastructure investment was usually “gender-neutral” (see CVN, Oxfam and SNV, 2018; VWU and UNW, 2020).
CARE International in Vietnam (CVN) is implementing the Project for Advancing Women’s Economic Empowerment in Vietnam (AWEEV) in a number of communes in Ha Giang and Lai Chau. Within the framework of the AWEEV project, CVN carried out a Study on “Assessment on gender responsiveness level and impacts of rural infrastructure on Women’s Unpaid Care Work” to better learn about the gender responsiveness of infrastructure work invested and built within the framework of the National Target Programs in 2016-2020, as well as the impacts of this infrastructure work on women’s UCW. This is the first study on this issue in Vietnam.