The major findings of this research on Vietnamfs demography under French rule are:
- estimates obtained using reverse projection methods indicate that a large part of Vietnam population was certainly underregistred by the colonial administration. The population increased steadily during the first half of the twentieth century, from less than 20 millions in 1910 to about 25 millions in 1940. This corresponds to a lower increase rate that usually assumed using official sources by French civil officers (about 13 millions in 1901). Total population probably decreased during WWII, but the increase in death rate was very limited in time and concerned limited areas (high density Tonkin provinces).
- as a consequence, it is possible to compare available data on employment in specific sectors to labour force estimates based on age structure and hypothesis of age and sex labour participation. Historical patterns of employment in those sectors as a share of male labour force indicate that peak years were reached in public and private modern sectors during the late 1920s and early 1930s.
Further research could enhance the accuracy and reliability of these preliminary results. The first aim could be to produce annual estimates for population and labour force using the same reverse projection method. Collecting data on mortality and fertility patterns in Tonkin and Annam, and using data for each province, would allow demographic reconstruction for each of the three Vietnamese regions (or even for all provinces), as well as for Cambodia and Laos. In addition, it might be useful to solve several inconsistency problems in the mortality patterns of the 1980s and 1990s and girls under-registration at the 1989 census. This could reduce uncertainty in the reverse projection procedure and thus improve Vietnamfs population estimates.