Using data from the 2006 Enterprise Census and Survey, the paper sheds light on why evasion and particularly under-reporting of wages is so common in Vietnam: only 46.4% of the enterprises are registered with social security, 21.7% of registered firms' workers are not covered, and wages reported to social security represent only 32.5% of the wages actually paid. While there are institutional explanations for the situation, enterprises and workers' motivations are not clear. Do employers withhold social security contributions for their own profit or do they pay them in higher wages to their workers? Using the variation in the share of social security contributions in wages across enterprises, the study first verifies that in Vietnam, as in many countries, enterprises can shift the burden of social security contributions on wages. In a second step, it searches for evidence that, within a same branch of industry, evading enterprises make higher profits or revenues per worker. While it is clear that enterprises that evade and under-report wages pay higher wages, there is no evidence of employers' appropriation of the unpaid social security contributions. Taking five key policy implications, the conclusion explains that enforcement policies and information campaigns in Vietnam will marginally help expand social security and shrink informal employment and the business practice of under-reporting wages. Consensus-building activities conducive to regulatory changes and coordinated action among policymakers, enterprises and employees are required.

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Castel and Fox analyze the gender implications ofOverall, however, the net change in wealth resulting pension reform in Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, from the reforms will be larger on average for men than Latvia, and Moldova. The new systems deliberately for women, because they will work longer and get a penalize early retirement and reward longer careers, so larger pension. that with no change in behavior or policy, women's Women's longer life expectancy means that women pensions will be lower than men's on average.can expect to spend the last years of their lives alone. If Still, the implicit financial returns for women remain their pensions are too low because of their work higher on average than returns for men, because of histories, poverty among elderly women may increase. women's longer life expectancy and because of redistributory minimum pensions. This paper-a joint product of the Gender Board; the Social Protection Team, Human Development Network; and the Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Sector Unit, Europe and Central Asia Region-is part of a larger effort in the Bank to understand how the reforms and new institutions being put in place in Eastern European and Central Asian countries affect women's lives and opportunities. Copies of the paper are available free from the World Bank,

Since 1947, the Vietnam Social Security has provided social insurance to public servants and armed forces personnel in Vietnam. In 1995, the Government merged the social insurance unit of the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs with that of the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor. At the same time the system became mandatory to the employees of the newly developing private sector. The consolidated system is publicly managed by the Vietnamese Social Security administration (VSS) that collects contributions and pay social insurance benefits (in case of sickness and sick leaves, maternity and family planning related leaves, work injury and professional disease, survivorship and to people that reached pension ages). The mandatory coverage 2 of the private sector was first restricted to the enterprises with 10 or more employees. Since 2005, all the types of enterprises, whatever their size, have the obligation to register to VSS the employees with a labor contract of 3 months or longer.