Binh Duong has rapidly transformed during the period 1999-2009, from a agricultural province to industrial one. The paper explores the shift of occupation-based social structure of Binh Duong during that period. Using the data sets of Census 1999 and 2009, the paper analyses the evolution of the occupational figure in Binh Duong by ten occupational categories and four occupational strata, and the differences in this figure by residence, gender, ethnic, and religious variables. Findings show that the occupational structure of Binh Duong is more developed than the one of the Southern Key Economic Zone. Its change in rural areas is more significant than in urban areas. There are not considerable differences by gender, ethnicity, and religiousness. The findings are suggestive for a further analysis using the data set of Census 2019 on the evolution of occupational figures in Binh Duong during the previous twenty years (1999-2019).
In 2014, Binh Duong has 2.885 the Khmer people, being the second largest ethnic minority compared to the Hoa people. They have contributed to the multi-ethnic culture of Binh Duong. Hundreds of works on the Khmer in the Mekong Delta considered their culture as a typical of Theravada Buddhist culture in Vietnam but this proposition is not suitable for the Khmer community in An Binh, Phu giao district who is this object of this study. By qualitative data sources from in-depth interviews, participant observations and approach to the historical particularism, this study documented the cultural characteristics of the Khmer in An Binh and analyzed the factors that make culture of the Khmer in An Binh different from the culture of the Khmer in the Mekong Delta. Natural conditions and socio-historical context make the cultural practices of the Khmer in An Binh more similar to the culture of the ethnic groups in the Central Highlands than the Khmer culture in the Mekong delta, especially, customs and folk beliefs.