Abstract
The study assesses the impact of different types of land use rights certificates (LURC) on individual and household welfare, expanding on the previous research of Menon, Rodgers, and Kennedy (2016), which assessed the effects of LURCs on agricultural land on household welfare. This study considers more recent data from the Vietnam Household Living Standards Survey (VHLSS) of 2014 in addition to VHLSS data from 2002–08 and includes an analysis of LURCs for agricultural as well as residential land. The study findings are presented below in three sections. The first is an analysis of land use and LURC distribution trends based on the VHLSS data. The second draws on a group of impact evaluations that compares the effects of having different types of LURCs. We regress individuals' employment and health care outcomes on whether their name was included on a LURC. The treatment variables are whether one has been issued an agricultural or residential LURC, with controls for age, education, ethnicity, urban residence, household consumption, land area, and district. We also regress household-level outcomes—expenditures, credit levels, and incomes—on whether the household's LURC is singly or jointly titled. Notably, the distribution of LURCs is not randomized, making it difficult to estimate the causal effects of LURC status and thereby limiting the conclusions that can be drawn. The third section, using 2014 demographic data and LURC distributions, offers a cost-benefit analysis of efforts to convert and reissue all remaining singly titled LURCs to jointly titled ones. We estimate the benefit as the impact difference between single- and jointly titled LURCs as calculated in the impact evaluation section and estimate costs as those of reissuing a LURC.
Highlights
The 2003 Land Law mandating joint titling for married couples has increased the share of joint land titles in Vietnam, but men continue to control a disproportionate amount of land and assets because before this reform, rights were regularly issued to only one member of a household—usually the husband
In Vietnam, land use rights for agricultural or residential land are granted by local authorities through land use rights certificates (LURCs), which can be issued to an individual or to a household
Women whose names are included on LURCs, either as sole or joint owners, have higher per capita expenditures, lower poverty rates, and higher self-employment rates compared with women whose names are not included (Menon, Rodgers, and Kennedy 2016)
Summary
The 2003 Land Law mandating joint titling for married couples has increased the share of joint land titles in Vietnam, but men continue to control a disproportionate amount of land and assets because before this reform, rights were regularly issued to only one member of a household—usually the husband. In Vietnam, land use rights for agricultural (e.g., cropland) or residential land are granted by local authorities through land use rights certificates (LURCs), which can be issued to an individual or to a household. For the latter, the LURC can be issued as a single or joint title, in either case the land is considered the common property of all household members. Women whose names are included on LURCs, either as sole or joint owners, have higher per capita expenditures, lower poverty rates, and higher self-employment rates compared with women whose names are not included (Menon, Rodgers, and Kennedy 2016)
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