In the viewpoint of Van de Broeck (1996),
migration is seen as a way of survival of human beings. When
resource of the origin location is hardly to satisfy human's
demand, people start to migrate from their homeland to another place for
survival. They migrate with hoping that new destination will give them
better job and therefore improved living standard.
Migration especially spontaneous migration
from rural to urban has pervasive effects throughout economies. In
one side, it seems to have positive impact on economy.
Competition and then efficiency in urban labour market increases due to
mass labours from rural areas. Additionally, remittances from
migrants are important sources for their origin places to develop.
In the other side, migration also leads to many negative impact
regarding
to labour market (urban
unemployment…), environment pollution, and provision of
community services and facilities that even overburden to provide to
residents adequately and social evils…
Hence, the migrant's characteristics worth
researching because it will provide much more useful information to
answer question why and for what they migrate. The more
migration is studied the more migration, especially spontaneous
migration will be controlled effectively and economically.
In Vietnam, VLSS1992/1993 shows that 23
percent of Vietnamese adults live in place other than the place
where they born (Lucas, 2000). In addition, when the
administrative control has been more and more released since 1990,
especially the food subsidy mechanism was removed, internal migration
has been increasing (Haughton, 1994).
Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City are the
two biggest cities in Vietnam. The unequal development soars
between rural and urban areas in terms of both economic and
social effects. As a result, an increasing number of rural people move
to these cities. It has put a
fierce pressure on all fields. Number of
migrants to Hanoi is an average of 22,000 people per year (since
1986) (CPS, 1997). This is five times higher than the number of people
moving
out. It is a same picture in Ho Chi Minh
City. During twenty years (1976 to 1996), there are 900,000 people
migrating to this city in comparison with 4.9 million of its population
(IER, 1997).
Migration is interested in by Vietnam
Government and UNDP. A project titled "Strengthening the
Capacity for internal migration Policy and development in
Vietnam" (VIE95/004) was carried by the Department of
Resettlement and Development of New Economic Zones in MARD
under the funding of UNDP. Of which, the two reports on
2
spontaneous migration to Hanoi
and Ho Chi Minh City had shown an overview of migration during the period of
10 years (since 1986).
This thesis will, therefore, try to
provide an in-depth analysis of characteristics of migrant to
Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City before the move and then, be
expected to recommend some policy implication basing on this issue.
Research questions
The central thesis research question is:What are the
migrant's characteristics whomoved to Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City?
To accomplish this, specific research
questions are:
1.How can rural-urban migration be
understood? What are the migrant's characteristics in theories?
2.What are characteristics of migrants
and reasons for them to migrate to Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City?
3.What are relation between these
characteristics and migrant's income? and
4.What are policy implications for the
issues of rural-urban migration drawn from the analysis of the migrant's
characteristics?
Structure of the thesis
Introduction
Chapter I: Literature review.
Theories, concepts and
definitions related to internalmigration,
characteristics of migrant will be the main focus of this chapter.
Chapter II: Spontaneous rural migration
to Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.
Focus isplaced on
migrants’ characteristics, migration decision-making process and
preparation before the move.
Chapter III: Migrant income analyses.
In this chapter, factor analyses
will be used topoint out the whole picture of income and
all migrant's characteristics with correlation among them and then,
income model is used to test these relations.
Chapter IV: Conclusions and Policy
Recommendations.
3
Chapter 1: Literature review
The focus of this chapter has been on three
fundamental questions: (i) Why do people migrate?; (ii) What are the
influential factors on migration decision?; and then (iii) What are the
migrant's characteristics?
I. Definition of
migration. 1. Definition of
migration.
Migration is generally viewed as a movement
of people from one place to another. However, various authors emphasize
different aspects of the movement and provide a more concise definition
of migration.
A precise definition of migration is
provided by United Nations (1970). Migrant is defined " a person
who has changed his usual place of residence from one migration defining
area to another… during (a given) migration interval".
For Vietnam, migration is the movement of
people from one place to another that is
from one to another district, province
or country for a period of a year or more (Vietnam Committee
1992, 1994) (Haughton, 1995, pp. 183-184).
2. Types of migration.
Internal migration is one occurring inside
country's boundary. It is typically classified as organized or
unorganized, legal or illegal depending on the sponsor of migration.
Basing on the place of origin and
destination four types of internal migration is identifies: Rural
- rural; Rural-urban; Urban-urban; and Urban - rural migration.
Finally, depending on the time and
duration of migration, internal migration is classified into
regular or seasonal migration, temporary or permanent migration.
II. Theories of
migration.
1. Lee's General Theory of Migration.
According to Lee, an individual’s migration
decision is normally influenced by four distinctive set of factors:
Factors associated with the area of origin and destination;
Intervening obstacles and Personal factors
There are many factors affecting different
people in different ways in both origin and destination areas. Some
of factors can attract people moving to while some others
tend to repel people and some are neutral. In each factor, it has
positive impacts for someone but it is negative for others. It is
also true to intervening factors occurring during the movement
process. Finally, personal sensitivities, awareness of conditions
and ability to evaluate the
4
situation of origin and destination
depend, among other things, on the migrant’s extent of personal
networks as well as his (her) ability to access information.
Critical point to Lee’s argument is
the differences played by the same factors on different
individuals. Depending on the each individual preference, personality
and attitudes toward change, responses may vary from individual to
individual.
2. Migration in the Lewis’ Model
In Lewis’s model, real wage
differential is presented the simplest explanation for rural-urban
migration. There consists of two sectors in the economy: The traditional
sector is mainly agriculture with low productivity, low investment in
capital and surplus labour while the modern one is the industrial
sector and characterized with high productivity, high level of
reinvestment and rising labour demand.
The main idea is that much of the labour used
on the land having zero or negative fghgmjtyrmfghfdal product. Thus, if labour
moves from the non-capitalist to the capitalist sector, there will
be little or no impact on agriculture output. With high level
of reinvestment, modern sector expands rapidly which in turn increases
the demand for labour. To attract labour from traditional sector, wages
in the modern sector have to be higher than that of the traditional.
Abundant labour flows from the traditional to the modern sectors. This
flow will continue
until surplus labour is absorbed and labour
supply schedule ceases to be perfectly elastic.
Lewis’s model of migration has been
criticized for its unrealistic assumptions: (i) the model assumes
implicitly that the creation of employment is proportional to the
reinvestment; (ii) the assumption of zero fghgmjtyrmfghfdal product of
labour in the traditional sectors has been questioned; (iii)
labour is "unlimited" in the sense that the supply curve of labour is
infinitely elastic at the ruling of wage but in fact it is upward
sloping.
3. Harris-Todaro's model of Migration:
In Harris-Todaro’s model, migration
is viewed as an economic phenomenon motivated by the
rural-urban expected income differentials.
The basis assumptions being made in the model
are: (i) The economy is divided into two sectors: the urban
specializes in industrial activities while the rural does in agriculture
and characterized by on farm labour surplus;
(ii) Rural labour market is a competitive and rural wages
reflect labor’s fghgmjtyrmfghfdal product in agriculture; (iii)
Urban wages are institutionally determined and they are higher
than the market clearing wages under a competitive labour
market; and (iv) total urban force labour consists of
permanent urban wage-earning workers plus the available supply of rural
migrants. In that context, whenever the demand of labour is lower
than the supply, a periodic random job selection process exits.
5
The number of rural migrants to the urban
centers in time period t, (Mt) is assumed to be a positive
function of rural-urban wage differential (Wu - Wr)
Mt = h (pWu
- Wr)
where h = the response rate of
potential migrants and p = probability of finding a job
Rural-urban migration will continue as long
as W*u exceeds Wr. and stop when W*u = Wr
Harris-Todaro’s model suffers from two main
shortcomings. Firstly, informal sector is not regarded in the
model. Secondly, Harris-Todaro’s model emphasizes only the
economic factors and non-economic factors are ignored.
4. Migration as an investment in human
capital
Migration is investigated in the context
of microeconomics and individual decision making. An individual
chooses to move to where she can be most productive given her
human capital. Thus, migration to a higher paying job is a human
investment because people sacrifice present benefit for higher
future earnings. An individual tends to migrate if the present
value of the expected earnings exceeds the present value of
the investment costs (transportation expense, forgone income, psychic
costs, the loss of seniority benefits…)
In addition to the net present value of
future earnings, migration decisions are also influenced by a host of
other factors including age of individual, family factors, the level of
education, distance and the prevailing unemployment rate.
Theory of migration as investment in
human capital refers not only to economic factor but also to
non-economic factors (i.e. education, family influence, and social
ties…). These non-economic factors are not given any attention in Harris
and Todaro’s model.
5. The ‘new’ economics of migration.
This new approach is that migration
decision is made by a group of related individuals- families or
households. People act collectively to maximize expected income and
minimize risk and loosen constraints associated with a variety of market
failures.
Moreover, migration provides the rational
individual with an opportunity to overcome constraints imposed by the
premature, poorly- serviced capital market in rural areas.
In addition, the ‘Relative Deprivation
Approach’ is used to analyze the problem of rural-urban migration
in developing countries. Motivation moving from A to B is strong if
the individual’s deprivation decreases
and the satisfaction increases. People may decide to migrate even
through there is no wage differential in the two places.
Finally, migration can be seen as a risk
diversification process. Families may attempt to spread their risk by
sending some of their members to various other locations to minimize the
exposure of the household to economic downturn (Lucas, 2000, p.61).
6
6. The Network theory of migration
Migrant networks are sets of
interpersonal ties that connect migrants, former migrants, and
non-migrants in origin and destination areas through ties of kinship,
friendship, and shared community origin. The probability of migration
increases because the costs and risks of movement are lowered and
thus the expected net returns to migration goes up.
Declining costs:
Potential costs of migration are substantially lowered for friends andrelatives who migrate later because social ties in the
destination area has been created.
Declining risks: Networks also make migration extremely
attractive as a strategy forrisk diversification. When
migrant networks are well developed, employment in destination place is
easier to seize for the new comer.
In short, characteristics of migrant are
referred in all migration theories. The portrait of migrant is fairly
uniform in terms of age, gender, educational level, economic status and
network of migrants. They are summarized as follow:
Age selectivity:
Migrants are mainly young people with the ages from 15 to 24.
Gender selectivity:
migration is dominated by male, especially in long distance ofmoving. However, the proportion of female migrants has
increased as long as their educational opportunities have expanded
in recent years.
Educational selectivity:
there is a positive correlation between educational attainment
and migration. Education may raise the expected rural-urban income
differential and increase the probability of getting jobs in the modern
sector.
Economic selectivity: For many years, the largest percentage of
urban in-migrants waspoor, landless, and unskilled
individuals. However, migrants have recently seem to come from
all socio-economic stratas. The number of wealthy migrants increases.
Network selectivity:
The discussion of migrant characteristics should includeobservation that migrants do not come equally from all areas. This
is a result of migration network. Most of migrants have some relations
with urban residents.
Iii. Empirical study on
migration
In conclusion, migration with definition of
change in usual residence of one person
during a given migration interval, is
a common economic phenomenon in most countries, especially in
developing ones. Generally accepted motivations of migration are
economic factors such as income differential between origin and
destination areas, employment opportunities…and non-economic
factors such as getting higher education level, job skill,
household risk diversification. Moreover, migration is a selective
process.
7
chapter 2: Spontaneous migration to Hanoi
and Ho Chi Minh City.
This chapter focuses on current
spontaneous migration to the two biggest cities: Hanoi and Ho Chi
Minh City with the outline as follows: Section I provides an overview of
migration in Vietnam. Section II describes the main
socio-economic characteristics of migrants. The chapter ends with some
concluding remarks.
I. Overview of migration
in Vietnam. 1. Socio-economic
development
After the reunification (1975), the
whole economy was standardized under the existing model in the
North. The government focused on restructuring and restoring the
economy. Industries were considered as key sector.
GDP composition by sector remained
stable in the period 1975-1980. Due to the conflict with
Cambodia and with China along the borders in the North, the
Vietnamese economy had been in recession (UN 1993). The economy
recovered gradually in the following quinquennium. Since the
Sixth Congress in December 1986, government implemented a
doi moi-renovation in order to shift from planned to
market-oriented economy. However the economy returned deeply stagnating
because of many reasons.
Virtual reform, called "Big Bang", came
in March 1989 with series of radical changes. Most of the remains
of command economy were swept away formally (Houghton, 1995).
Private sector was highly encouraged. Services sector
and agriculture grew surprisingly. Meanwhile industrial output
grew by just 2% in 1989. It caused of cutting government's
subsidy for SOEs that were mainly in industrial sector (Haughton, 1995,
p.9).
2. Overview of migration in Vietnam.
After the reunification of the country
in 1975, rural to rural migration pattern was encouraged by
the government in order to redistribute population. Another
pattern of migration in Vietnam has been urban-rural migration. After
the reunification, a large number
of southern urban residents were repatriated
to their home villages and to the NEZs in the Central Highland
provinces. Lack of adequate physical and social infrastructure
combined with low income in NEZs resulted in the return of many
migrants. Rural-urban migration did exist in Vietnam but was strictly
controlled before doi moi (UN, 1993; Nguyen et al, 1999). There
was no free migration because of the subsidy system. Without the
permission, migrants could hardly obtained most of the necessities for
living (UNDP, 1998).
8
More reforms after doi moi were
implemented in the later half of 1980s and early 1990. These
came to affect the labor market and migration flows and deepened the
regional inequality. Therefore, as people become more aware of the
opportunities, they try to move to urban place in the hope of seeking a
better life.
Migration pattern has changed. Government has
invested less in organized migration to NEZs. People continue to
move on their own initiative. As a result, free and illegal
migrants go up. Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City are the two biggest economic
centers so that they have attracted a great number of free migrants
especially after the Resolution 7.
Recently, rural-urban migration flow
has been the dominant form of internal migration. However,
the real number must be much higher because of large number
of seasonal migrants who are not recorded in official statistics.
II. Migration to Hanoi
and Ho Chi Minh City
Analyses in the thesis is mainly based on
data collected from the two surveys named
"Spontaneous migration to Hanoi and Ho
Chi Minh City" implemented by CPI and IER under the project
VIE95/004 with the sponsor of UNDP.
II.1. Demographic characteristics of
migrants 1. Age, sex ratio and marital status.
The sub-sample of seasonal migrant in
Ho Chi Minh City will be discarded in the following discussion
due to too small sample (29).
Migrants are young people. Half of
them are single. Higher sex ratio of migrants compared to
non-migrants proves that men migrate more than women. However,
these changes among types of migration and are different between Hanoi
and Ho Chi Minh City.
2. Education and professional skill.
a.Education
At the time of moving, regular migrant
completed lower secondary school. The seasonal's is lower. However,
due to larger proportion of seasonal migrant, average education level
in Hanoi survey is not as high as that of Ho Chi Minh
City. Non-migrant is better educated than migrant in Hanoi. But this
is not true for the case of Ho Chi Minh City.
b. Professional and technical skill
Most of people have no professional and
technical skills when they migrate to city. The regular has better skill
than the seasonal and male is better than female. Skill of non- migrant
is higher than that of migrants in Hanoi survey. Similar to the case of
Ho Chi Minh City but the gap is smaller.
In short, basing on different features of
both origin and destination places, migrants to Hanoi have higher
education and professional skill than those of Ho Chi Minh City.
Table 1: Age, sex ratio and marital status
Regular migrant
Seasonal migrant
Non-migrants
Hanoi
HCMC
Hanoi
HCMC
Hanoi
HCMC
I. Age group (%) From 0 to 14
11.4
6.9
From 15 to 19
26.0
30.4
8.5
13.8
15.4
15.5
From 20 to 29
31.7
38.6
53.0
37.9
16.9
27.8
From 30 to 39
15.4
13.8
26.3
24.1
24.5
26.6
From 40 to 49
8.0
5.1
6.0
6.9
18.1
12.7
From 50 to 59
4.3
3.1
3.6
3.4
13.8
8.3
More than 60
3.3
2.0
2.5
13.8
11.3
9.1
Cases
982
1271
281
29
486
496
II. Sex ratio From 0 to 14
0.87
0.76
From 15 to 19
0.89
0.90
3.00
3.00
0.88
0.93
From 20 to 29
1.53
1.05
6.45
1.20
1.10
0.84
From 30 to 39
1.19
1.07
9.57
2.50
0.83
0.76
From 40 to 49
0.80
0.86
3.25
1.00
0.83
0.66
From 50 to 59
0.56
1.22
0.67
0.00
2.19
1.16
More than 60
0.45
0.92
0.40
1.00
1.50
0.50
Group total
1.05
0.98
4.85
1.42
1.07
0.79
III. Marital status (%)
Never married
54.1
57.3
38.4
55.2
28.8
41.0
Married
41.6
39.4
58.7
41.4
65.4
51.5
Widowed/
Divorced/separated
4.3
3.3
2.8
3.4
5.7
7.5
Cases
982
1273
281
29
486
495
Source:
Calculated by author based on VIE95/004
3. Place of origin.
In Hanoi, people from Red River Delta
accounts for the highest proportion of migrants in both regular
and seasonal. It is much larger than the second areas (the
North Mountainous areas). In Ho Chi Minh City, migrants
distribute more equally among areas. The origin place with the
highest rate of in-migrants to Ho Chi Minh City is Mekong Delta
and the next one is Southeast.
4. Length of migration interval
Before the 1990s, migrants were
strictly controlled. The most effective tool of migration control
is subsidy system. Along with economic development, migration
control policies have been gradually removed. As a result, in-migration
rate has increased with about 10%/year on average. People who have just
moved to Hanoi for 6 months account for 36.8
10
percent. It causes of large seasonal
flow but this rate of the regular is also relatively high
(18.8%). This is explained by the increasing migration flow to urban.
There are some differences in the case of Ho
Chi Minh City survey. Proportion of in- migration is stable around 10
percent annually. The reason is that administration control in Ho Chi
Minh City is relatively loose compared to the case of Hanoi.
II. 2. Economic characteristics before
migration. 1. Economic activities.
Table 2: Economic activities one month before
the move
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