Abstract
Substantial informal employment and excessive unpaid care burdens on women are characteristic of developing economies. This article takes a gender lens to examine the employment effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on workers in rural Viet Nam. Using 2021 Vietnamese labour force survey data with a light time-use module to fit ordered logit models, we find a strong association between adverse changes in employment and time spent on unpaid care work both across economic sectors and between men and women. Our findings shed light on the interlocking crises in public health, the economy and care provision that were ushered in by the pandemic. They call for more gender-sensitive policies and greater investment in social care infrastructure in rural Viet Nam, especially for vulnerable informal workers, female household heads and those in non-farm work.