Role of women in the nation’s new era

New Era: Opportunities and Challenges for Women
Vietnam is transforming, stepping into a new period - new era. This is an accelerating period of the Vietnamese revolution in order to realize strategic targets, towards the 100th founding anniversary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) in 20230; and the 100th founding anniversary of the nation in 2045.
With the mindset that our country has never had such fortune, potential, international position and prestige as it does today, the CPV has determined that the key driving force and resource for the country’s development is to strongly arouse patriotism, self-reliance, strength of great national unity and aspirations for a country of prosperity and happiness.
This is also one of the new points in the documents of the 13th National Party Congress and has been gradually concretized throughout the term.
In that context, a large number of Vietnamese women have promoted their fine traditions and confidently entered the new era with extremely important role and responsibilities.
This brings both opportunities and great challenges, directly affecting lives, jobs, development and contributions of women.
In terms of opportunities, the globalization and international integration remain major trends. The Fourth Industrial Revolution promises to create more jobs with higher incomes for workers, including female workers.
Promoting gender equality and women's empowerment are therefore identified as solutions to achieving sustainable development goals.
Regarding challenges, there are inadequacies that negatively affect women such as climate change, changes in family functions, increase in new types of crimes, high-tech crimes, threatening women and children’s safety. The labor and employment structure has many fluctuations due to the rapid industrialization and urbanization and the aging population trend, requiring workers to adapt quickly.
That context has been strongly impacting all aspects of life and the Vietnamese women’s comprehensive development. The goal for gender equality is still a long journey, demanding persistence.
Role of women in the new era
Stepping into the new era, women’s role needs to be strongly promoted. Accounting for more than 50% of the population, more than 46% of the social labor force, women represent in all fields; actively participate in the country's innovation and development cause; promote traditions, potentials, strengths and spirit of mastery, desire of rise of women in all strata; build Vietnamese women of the new era; improve the quality of female human resources, meeting requirements of sustainable development and international integration".
In the politics, the number of women involved in leadership and management is increasing. Women holding leadership positions in ministries, branches and government agencies account for 46.67% in 2023.
The proportion of female National Assembly deputies for the 2021-2025 term is 30.3%, ranking 64th in the world, 4th in Asia and 1st among Southeast Asian nations. The ration of female deputies and key female leaders at provincial, district and communal levels is increasingly high.
In the economic area, women represent 46.7% of the total labor force aging 15 and above; being present in many sectors including agriculture, industry, services and even in new sectors, such as information technology and finance.
To date, according to statistics, about 20% of SME enterprises are owned and run by women; percentage of women holding management and leadership positions in enterprises is 28% by 2023...
Women-led business models have created jobs for millions of people, contributing significantly to GDP, digital transformation, and sustainable economic development of the country.
In the fields of culture, sports and tourism, women play a particularly important role in preserving and promoting traditional cultural values, actively developing community tourism, in contribution to making Vietnam a leading cultural and heritage destination in Asia and the world.
In the fields of education, health care, science and technology, women are increasingly playing an important role in human resource development, public services and scientific research.
In the field of security and defense, women continue to promote the tradition of patriotism, actively participate in the keeping peace activities, security, and protecting the Fatherland.
The above figures show that women make great contributions to the future of national sustainable development, promoting gender equality and accelerating the role of women in all areas of social life.
The new era is a challenging period but also opens up huge opportunities for the country in general and Vietnamese women in particular.
In addition to the women’s inner efforts, there needs to be active support and involvement of all levels, sectors, families, communities and the whole society. It is necessary to boldly empower women, especially in the economic field; promote women's startup spirit in the digital era; joint implementation of solutions to improve the quality of female human resources, particularly high-quality female human resources.