The first Vietnam Living Standards Survey (VLSS) was conducted in 1992-93 by the State Planning Committee (SPC) (now Ministry of Planning and Investment) along with the General Statistical Office (GSO). The second VLSS was conducted by the GSO in 1997-98. Both VLSS surveys were funded by UNDP and Swedish International Development Authority (SIDA). The survey was part of the Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS) household surveys conducted in a number of developing countries with technical assistance from the World Bank.
The second VLSS was designed to provide an up-to-date source of data on households to be used in policy design, monitoring of living standards and evaluation of policies and programs. The timing of the second VLSS approximately five years after the first allows analysis of medium term trends in living standards as a large part of the questionnaire is the same in both surveys.
In addition to the purpose of obtaining a comprehensive and comparable data set to the 1992-93 VLSS for policy analysis, the survey also served as a medium for training and improving survey methods and analysis within the General Statistical Office of Vietnam (GSO), the agency in charge of designing and implementing the second round of the VLSS as well as other government agencies involved in social statistics.