From 2002 to 2010, the GSO plans to conduct the Vietnam Household Living Standards Survey every 2 years (in the years ending with even numbers) in order to monitor systematically living standards of Vietnam population's classes and at the same time, to monitor and assess the implementation of the Comprehensive Poverty Alleviation and Growth Strategy defined in the Country Strategy Paper approved by the Government Prime Minister. In addition, this survey also contributes to the evaluation of results of realization of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and Socio-Economic Development Goals set out by Vietnamese Government.
The VHLSS 2004 includes topics which reflect the population's living standards: demographic characteristics, education background, professional/ technical level, income, expenditures, use of health services, employment status, housing, amenity as possession, property, goods, electricity, water and sanitation conditions. In addition, this survey includes two new topics: “Agricultural, forestry and fishery land” and “Non-agricultural, forestry and fishery sectors” for more in-depth analysis. Technical assistance was provided by experts of the UN Statistics Division and the World Bank in designing questionnaires for the 2 new contents and sampling.