Identifying Consumption Trends of University Students in Hanoi and Proposing Policies on Soft Skills Education in the Mainstream Program for Students

Abstract

Young people have the need to spend for themselves, have the desire to self-express, enjoy the new experience and trend, including the consumption trend. This study contributes to the theoretical basis for changing educational policies and appropriate implementation solutions, in order to meet the needs of the comprehensive development of learners, contributes to socio-economic development, towards improving the quality of individuals’ life in sustainable social development. The article focuses on analyzing the main trends in consumption behavior of universities’ students in Hanoi today: online consumption, brand consumption, consumption domestic goods, consumption imported goods and environmentally friendly consumption. From that, the article proposes to add soft skills related to conscious consumption in the context of industry 4.0 era for students in the mainstream training program. This research is based on the data collected from a questionaire of 400 students and from 20 in-depth interviews. This study was funded by Hanoi National University in the project code QG.18.44. Keywords Consumption trends, soft skills, policies, university students.