Consequences of Urban Migration of Adult Children for the Elderly Left-Behind in Rural Vietnam
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John Curtin Institute of Public Policy - Curtin Business School Consequences of urban migration of adult children for the elderly left-behind in rural Vietnam Nguyen Thi Thu Hien This thesis is presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of Curtin University November 2019 Declaration To the best of my knowledge and belief this thesis contains no material previously published by any other person, except where due acknowledgement has been made. This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university. Signed: Date: 12th October 2019. Thi Thu Hien Nguyen Perth, Australia i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I own a debt of gratitude to many people and institutions who have helped me in achieving the completion of this thesis. To my principal supervisor, Professor John Phillimore; without his support, mentoring, and patience since my first letter searching for a supervisor until the last page of my thesis, my dream of doing PhD would not have been possible. My sincere thanks to Dr Chris Birdsall Jones, for her intellectual guidance with my data collection during the fieldwork. It was invaluable. John and Chris, your kindness, sympathy, generosity and selfless help through both my education as well as personal journeys was touching and heartfelt, which personally completed me, and professionally my career ever changed for the better. Thank you to every staff member in the John Curtin Institute of Public Policy (JCIPP) who made it warm like our second family. A special thanks to Leza for your kind assistance as an administrator. The JCIPP family could not be better without your dedication. I will forever miss that. I am grateful to the Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training and Curtin University of Technology. Their financial support made my journey possible. My special thanks to rural elderly for opening up and being willing to share their life stories. The warm welcome and great hospitality from Ms Oanh, and my friend’s family Ms Bui Thi Tinh, during my fieldwork while staying in with them. Thank you, the leaders of the communities, for their enthusiasm in group discussions, and for contributing their opinions about the life of rural elders. I would like to thank Prof. Giang Thanh Long- Dean of Institute of Public Policy and Management (IPPM) at National Economics University, Hanoi; for his suggestions when I started my 1st year of research; for sharing his knowledge, advice and the same passion and care for the elderly population in Vietnam. I am thankful to my friends both in Australia and in Vietnam, who have shared the journey, and cheered me up when I felt down. Especially, I own a debt to my family, my lovely sons Matt and Harry for their sacrifice, unconditional love, care and support, who were always there for me when I needed them the most. ii ABSTRACT Since the subsidised economy was substituted by privatisation in 1986, family became the main source of support for the majority of Vietnamese elderly. Traditionally, old aged parents live under the same roof with their adult children, so that they can be looked after. Recently, the process of modernisation of its economy with the focus on urban areas in Vietnam has pushed young rural generations away from home and torn rural families apart. Scholars and experts have tried to understand if that movement is having any impact on the left-behind parents. However, the majority of the existing studies used secondary data, and quantitatively tested only the economic aspects. Other aspects of life of the left-behind elders attracted a limited amount of research. The voice of those left-behind elderly parents was also underestimated, and often not heard. This study utilised a qualitative approach and drew on the voice of those insiders, whose children had migrated to urban areas for employment. It explores the well- being of rural elderly individuals, not only the material aspects, but also emotional and physical care. This study used in-depth interviews, focus group discussion and observation techniques to collect data in three communities in rural areas of Vietnam. The participants were mainly the elderly parents of migrants; a total of 48 households. The elders without migrant children (12 households) were presented as the reference group. Both of those groups participated in the in-depth interviews. Key informants, who were leaders of the communes in the research settings, took part in focus group discussions to provide the additional opinions of outsiders. The observation method was also applied first-hand by the researcher. The study finds that the material aspect is the biggest concern for almost all rural households. Therefore, economic gain from urbanward migration had compensated the “emotional side effect” caused by the distant relationship between migrant child and parents. The absence of migrant children also led to reported reduced care provision to rurally based aged parents. However, the majority of rural elders still had remaining children looking after them. Given that condition, urban child migration overall seems to have a positive impact on the lives of rural elderly iii parents, even though it did not make a great difference. The positive result on the other hand, indicates that rural households were commonly and permanently facing financial difficulties, and urban migration is a strategy for rural families to break cycles of disadvantage and poverty. The intergenerational reciprocation, and filial transfers found in this study also show that geographical dispersion did not weaken family relationships. Far from concern of many people about eroding filial piety, in some case distances even made it stronger. For those elders whose children all migrated (especially single elderly households and grandparental elders), the study finds an adverse impact. Notably, in the worst situations, rural elderly parents, as my observation, seemed not to have any effective strategy to cope with, or to overcome the difficulties. They simply suffered from it, or received support from family, relatives and neighbours rather than welfare provision from the local or state government. Given the fact that the fertility rate sharply declines, and urbanward movement continues, this result raises a concern for rural Vietnam in the near future, when more elderly individuals will be living alone without children nearby. It is therefore suggested that urban migration should only be the solution for rural Vietnam in the short-term, where most of the elderly people have both migrant and non-migrant children. Arguably, without any action from government to control or manage the situation, urbanward movement over the long term may threaten the lives of the left-behind population, in particular the elderly. Furthermore, at the same time as causing great pressure and a heavy burden on cities, urbanward movement creates an unstainable future for agriculture, if farming continues to depend on the left-behind (feminisation of agriculture, or agriculturalisation of the grey population). For long-term sustainable development of the country, the study suggests that government should invest more in the agricultural and regional sectors, reducing the gaps in development levels between regions. Otherwise, an urgent call will be needed for the state to improve the welfare safety net for the rural elderly population regarding their material, emotional and health care, so that the out-migration of their adult children will not adversely affect their well-being. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................. 2 1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSITION AND THE URBANISATION PROCESS IN VIETNAM ..................................................................................................................... 2 1.2 STATEMENT OF THE RESEARCH PROBLEM ...................................................................... 6 1.3 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES .............................................................................................. 7 1.4 MIGRATION INTERPRETATION SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT AND THEORY CONSIDERATION .............. 8 1.5 BACKGROUND OF THE CASE STUDY .............................................................................. 9 1.6 OUTLINE OF THE THESIS........................................................................................... 13 CHAPTER 2. THE IMPACT OF URBAN MIGRATION OF ADULT CHIDREN ON RURAL ELDERLY PARENTS: THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES AND EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE .. 16 2.1 THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK .......................................... 17 2.1.1 Key terminologies, typologies of migration and the scope of the study ... 17 2.1.2 Rural-urban migration in developing countries: Scale and recent trends 24 2.1.3 The incentives for rural-urban migration in developing countries: Migration theoretical perspectives .................................................................... 27 2.1.4 Selectivity of migration in developing countries ....................................... 33 2.1.5 Patterns of dependency ............................................................................ 35 2.1.6 Familial relationships - theoretical explanation ........................................ 35 2.1.7 Aspects of care provisions to the older adult and well-being theories ..... 38 2.1.8 Older adults in developing countries and their sources of income ........... 46 2.1.9 The impact of urban migration on rurally-based elderly relatives: Academic