Vietnam Household Research Articles

Impact of Political Connection on Farming Households’ Performance of Tea Production in Vietnam

<p><em>Purpose</em>: This paper aims to investigate the impacts of political connections on farming households’ performance, especially in tea production.</p><p>Methodology/Approach: The Box-Cox methodology is applied using the primary data surveyed on 244 tea farming households in Vietnam.</p><p><em>Findings</em>: The findings show the significant role of political connection on improving farming households’ income, particularly to members of the Communist Party, Youth Union and Farmer’s Union. However, the interaction effects of Farmer’s Union, Youth Union, Veteran’s Union and Communist Party with land has negatively significant impact on farming household income.</p><p><em>Practical Implications</em>: The evidences point out the capacity of improving tea producers’ income could be really potential implying most of existing related policies which should be adjusted.</p><p><em>Originality/Value</em>: This is the first research examining the impact of political connection on<em> </em>agricultural performance, especially in tea production. The impacts are estimated in de-tail; such as participating more on Veteran’s, Farmer’s, Youth Union and Communist Party may reduce time on cultivating; as a result, cultivated land could be reduced. Basing on these findings, we also suggest some appropriate policy implications related to the issue how to improve income of tea production households.</p>

Effect of Appropriate Technology Introduction to Farm Households in Vietnam for GHG Emission Reduction

In June 2015, carbon credits amounting to 446 t of CO 2 were issued for a Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) project developed and implemented in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta aimed at reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through the introduction of biogas digesters (BDs) to farm households. Subsequently, the project was evaluated in terms of GHG emission reductions (i.e., carbon credits issued), receptiveness of farm households to the technology, and economic benefits to these families. Findings confirmed that BDs provide concrete reductions in GHG emissions and are beneficial to install in such scenarios. Currently, a new international framework for post-2020 global warming mitigation is being considered by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), in which all signatory countries would participate, including the developing countries that have not yet been mandated to make reductions. These evaluation results present a potential policy direction for developing countries to reduce their GHG emissions.

Do internal and international remittances matter to health, education and labor of children and adolescents? The case of Vietnam

Using data from Vietnam Household and Living Standard Surveys in 2006 and 2008, this study estimates the effect of the receipt of international remittances and internal remittances on education, labor and healthcare utilization of children and adolescents in Vietnam. It shows that there are no statistically significant effects of receipt of remittances on school enrolment as well as child labor of children and adolescents. However, receiving international remittances helps children increase the number of completed grades by around 2% of the average completed grade for children. Both international and internal remittances are positively associated with the number of outpatient health care visits.

The Impact of Consumer Animosity and Consumer Ethnocentrism on Intention to Purchase Foreign Products: The Case of Chinese Branded Household Appliances in Vietnam Market

Vietnam-China bilateral relationship has sharply declined due to the recent conflicts on both economic and political affairs. On top of that, the current controversial incident regarding the East Sea issue has constantly deteriorated the connection. At this critical time when the effects of consumers’ attitude toward Chinese products could not be overlooked, the empirical study aims to investigate the impacts of Consumer Animosity and Consumer Ethnocentrism on Purchase Intention of Chinese branded merchandise with the mediating role of Consumer Judgment. Household appliance category is chosen because of the dominance of Chinese brands in Vietnam market. In addition to the assessment of Animosity effect on Purchase Intention, the research is designated to examine its antecedences, including Perceived Economic Hardship and Normative Influences as well as their influences on Animosity. Structural Equation Modeling was utilized to test the theoretical framework, analyzing the data from a sample of 349 consumers with diverse backgrounds. The results have demonstrated that only Perceived economic hardship manifest a significant impacts on Animosity. Meanwhile, Animosity and Ethnocentrism have negative relationships with both Chinese branded household appliances Judgment and Purchase Intention. Overall, the study provides specific discussion and recommendations for the Vietnam household appliances industry and at the same time points into various directions for further researches.

The Decision to Invest in Child Quality over Quantity: Household Size and Household Investment in Education in Vietnam

During Vietnam's two decades of rapid economic growth, its fertility rate has fallen sharply at the same time that its educational attainment has risen rapidly—macro trends that are consistent with the hypothesis of a quantity-quality tradeoff in child-rearing. We investigate whether the micro-level evidence supports the hypothesis that Vietnamese parents are in fact making a tradeoff between quantity and “quality” of children. We present private tutoring—a widespread education phenomenon in Vietnam—as a new measure of household investment in children's quality, combining it with traditional measures of household education investments. To assess the quantity-quality tradeoff, we instrument for family size using the commune distance to the nearest family planning center. Our IV estimation results based on data from the Vietnam Household Living Standards Surveys (VHLSSs) and other sources show that rural families do indeed invest less in the education of school-age children who have larger numbers of siblings. This effect holds for several different indicators of educational investment and is robust to different definitions of family size, identification strategies, and model specifications that control for community characteristics as well as the distance to the city center. Finally, our estimation results suggest that private tutoring may be a better measure of quality-oriented household investments in education than traditional measures like enrollment, which are arguably less nuanced and less household-driven.

Control of highly pathogenic avian influenza in Quang Tri province, Vietnam: voices from the human-animal interface

Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) is caused by the haemagglutinin 5, neuraminidase 1 (H5N1) influenza A virus. Around 80% of households in rural Vietnam raise poultry, which provides food security and nutrition to their households and beyond. Of these, around 15-20% are semi-commercial producers, producing at least 28% of the country's chicken. Through learning the experiences of these semi-commercial farmers, this study aimed to explore the local understandings and sociocultural aspects of HPAI's impact, particularly the aetiology, diagnosis, and the prevention and control methods in one Vietnamese rural province. This study was conducted in Quang Tri province, Vietnam. Quang Tri province has eight districts. Five of these districts were at high risk of HPAI during the study period, of which three were selected for the present study. Within these three districts, six communes were randomly selected for the study from the list of intervention communes in Quang Tri province. Six out of the 26 intervention communes in Quang Tri were therefore selected. Participants were randomly selected and recruited from lists of semi-commercial farmers, village animal health workers, village human health workers and local authorities so that the study population (representative population) included an amount of variability similar to that of the wider population. A key benefit of this village-level control program was the residential proximity of animal and human health professionals. Participants were well aware of the typical clinical signs for avian influenza and of the reporting process for suspect cases. However there was extensive room for improvement in Quang Tri province regarding access to the HPAI vaccine, essential medical equipment for animal use, and available financial support. This qualitative research study provided an important insight for in-country policy makers and international stakeholders. It is vital that there are continued efforts to prevent and control highly pathogenic avian influenza through support programs that provide locally appropriate information and resources to those at the human-animal interface.

Intergenerational Mobility of Earnings and Income Among Sons and Daughters in Vietnam

This paper empirically examines intergenerational economic mobility in Vietnam. The two-sample two-stage least squares estimation is employed to achieve the research objective using two primary samples of father-son pairs and father-daughter pairs from Vietnam Household Living Standards Survey of 2012, and one secondary sample from Vietnam Living Standards Survey of 1997-1998. The baseline intergenerational elasticity estimates show that Vietnam occupies the intermediate degrees of intergenerational mobility of earnings and income for both sons and daughters. In particular, a rise of 10% in fathers’ individual earnings is on average associated with an increase of 3.61% and 3.94% for sons’ individual earnings and individual income, respectively. The corresponding figures for daughters’ individual earnings and individual income are 2.84% and 3.33%, respectively. This paper also provides evidence on the average degree of inequality of opportunity in Vietnam during its transition from a central planning economy to a market-oriented system.

Factors influencing waste separation intention of residential households in a developing country: Evidence from Hanoi, Vietnam

Although various programs of waste separation at source have been deployed over the last decades in developing countries, they have stopped at the level of pilot-programs and have generally not been replicable. This empirical study aims to investigate the factors influencing the intentions in separating waste of residential households in Vietnam's capital city, Hanoi. The waste separation intentions of respondents were judged by the amount of the cash fine that each household was willing to pay as a commitment to participation. An econometric analysis was employed to demonstrate that trust, personal moral norms, perceived difficulties and reciprocity are important factors explaining the residents' behavioral intentions in waste separation. These findings suggest that apart from the improvement of institutional capacity and guarantee of satisfactory facilities and vehicles, communication campaigns to consolidate trust and inspire moral obligations of residents also have an essential role to play in overcoming the common dilemmas of solid waste management in a typical city of a developing country such as Hanoi, Vietnam.

How Credit Affects the Poor Household’s Expenditure?: A Case Study of Vietnam

This paper aims to clarify the impact of the credit for the expenditure of poor households in Vietnam. We have used Difference in Difference (DID) methods to estimate the panel data from Vietnam Living Standard Survey (VLSS) for the period of 2010-2012. The results showed that the credit has a positive influence to the average expenditure of the poor households, whether in formal credit or informal credit. However, informal credit is still a very important source of credit for poor households in Vietnam because it increases expenditure of poor households higher than formal credit. In addition, research also found significant effects of some factors such as regional, ethnicity, education level, household size to expenditures.

Natural Disasters, Household Welfare, and Resilience: Evidence from Rural Vietnam

Summary The study uses commune fixed-effects regressions to estimate the effect of natural disasters on welfare and poverty of rural households in Vietnam, and subsequently examines household and community characteristics that can strengthen resilience of households to natural disasters. We find that all the three disaster types considered in this study including storms, floods, and droughts have negative effects on household income and expenditure. Households in communes with higher mean expenditure and more equal expenditure distribution are more resilient to natural disasters. Access to micro-credit, internal remittances, and social allowances can help households strengthen the resilience to natural disasters.

The Interrelated Dynamics of Multiple Borrowing and Over-indebtedness Among Rural Households in Thailand and Vietnam

Does multiple borrowing lead micro-borrowers into over-indebtednes? Do over-indebted micro-borrowers take loans to refinance existing loans that are ultimately unpayable and get trapped in a vicious circle of debt? Using a longitudinal household survey data, this study addresses such questions by examining the dynamic interdependency between over-indebtedness and multiple borrowing in the context of micro-borrowers in Thailand and Vietnam. Specifically, the trues state dependence and cross-state dependence effects of over-indebtedness and multiple borrowing are tested using the dynamic random effect bivariate probit model while controlling for observed and unobserved household heterogeneity. Results suggest that taking multiple borrowing simultaneously does positively influence household's risk of becoming over-indebted in Thailand, while in Vietnam it has no significant influence on household's risk of over-indebtedness. Although households reported of taking multiple loans to repay old debts, the empirical results do not support the premises that over-indebtedness reinforces households to refinance ultimately unpayable debts and trap households into a perpetual debt cycle.

Estimation of family labor supply: Evidence from the MeKong River Delta in Viet Nam. Can Tho University Journal of Science

This article explores the data of 1,860 families living in the Mekong River Delta (MRD) region from the Viet Nam Household Living Standards Survey 2008 (called VHLSS 2008) to learn about their familial labor allocation in responding to changes of market wage. Theoretically, wage – one of the key factors influencing changes of family labor supply– is used to estimate a level of the shadow wage which is an exogenous factor in the labor supply function. Based on the survey data of 1,860 MRD families, findings showed that family labor supply is significantly sensitive to changes of both shadow wage and non-labor income. Family labor supply is being of a forward bending curve, while family tended to reduce its labor supply as a response of an increase of the non-labor income. Additionally, plot size was closely related to labor supply within a family. Consequently, results also indicate that IV estimation methodology is substantial to estimate impacts of changes of the economic opportunity (mainly wage) on family labor supply.

Intergenerational Mobility of Earnings and Income Among Sons and Daughters in Vietnam

<p>In this thesis, I investigate intergenerational mobility of earnings and income among sons and daughters in Vietnam. In particular, my objective is to estimate intergenerational elasticity (IGE) of sons’ and daughters’ individual earnings, individual income, and family income with respective to father’s individual earnings. The two-sample two-stage least squares (TS2SLS) estimation is employed to achieve the research objective using two primary samples of father-son pairs and father-daughter pairs from Vietnam Household Living Standard Surveys (VHLSS) of 2012 and one secondary sample from Vietnam Living Standard Surveys (VLSS) of 1997-98. My results show that the baseline IGE estimates of Vietnamese sons are 0.361, 0.394 and 0.567 for individual earnings, individual income, and family income, respectively. For Vietnamese daughters, the baseline IGE estimates are 0.284, 0.333 and 0.522 for individual earnings, individual income, and family income, respectively. These IGE estimates explicitly reveal that Vietnam has the intermediate degrees of individual earnings and individual income mobility, and the low degree of family income mobility cross generations for both sons and daughters by the international comparison.</p>

Impact Evaluation of Microcredit on Welfare of the Vietnamese Rural Households

This study evaluates the impact of microcredit on the welfare of the rural households in Vietnam, especially the poor, and investigates the determinants on the accessibility to microcredit programs. Propensity score matching (PSM) method and difference in difference (DID) method are employed to evaluate the impact. The results show that microcredit improves living standard of the rural households via increasing their income and consumption. However, for case of the rural poor, microcredit is found to only improve their consumption but there is no evidence about its impact on their income. This study also found that microcredit programs may not serve the poor households. Such indicators as age, education level, leadership status of household head, household size, dependency ratio, house value, geographic location, facilities of communes are proved to affect the probability of participating in microcredit programs.

Rice Production, Trade and the Poor: Regional Effects of Rice Export Policy on Households in Vietnam

AbstractAnalysing Vietnam's rice export policy and recent export ban in the context of rising food prices, this study combines insights from a regionally‐disaggregated or ‘bottom‐up’ CGE model and a micro‐simulation using household data. Three main conclusions are drawn. First, although there is little impact on GDP, there are substantial distributional impacts across regions and households from different export policies and market conditions. Second, both rural and urban households, including poor households, benefit from free trade, even though domestic rice prices are higher. Finally, under free trade, relatively large gains accrue to rural households, where poverty is most pervasive in Vietnam.

Burden of care for persons with disabilities in Vietnam.

Vietnam has more than 6million persons with disabilities (PWD), or 7.8% of the population. To provide better services for them, it is important to investigate the care they currently receive, and to obtain evidence on the health outcomes from that care. This study aimed to estimate the quality of life and functional status of a group of PWD in Vietnam and the cost of care they receive. This was an analytical study exploring the time and cost of informal care, the cost of illness (prevalence-based, patient perspective), quality of life using EuroQoL and functional status using the Barthel Index. The sample was selected from urban and rural areas of Quang Tri province in Central Vietnam, using systematic random sampling. Data were collected by face-to-face interviews, and in a 1-month diary recorded during July-August 2010 for summer and in December 2010 for winter. The costs are presented in 2010 USD values. The data were analysed by descriptive, univariate and multivariate statistics to summarise and explore the relationships among dependent and independent variables. The study sample included 210 PWD, with an average age of 38years and duration of disability on average 26years. The health-related quality of life measured in terms of the health utility score (0=death, 1=full health) was on average 0.44 and 0.39 in summer and winter respectively. The total cost of illness per year per case was USD 971 (83% of gross domestic product per capita); explanatory variables were the age of the PWD, receiving community-based rehabilitation, receiving government support and the severity of the disability. This illustrates the importance of services and support for reduction of the economic burden on the family. In conclusion, the results of this study provide information on the burden caused by disabilities in rural and urban households in Vietnam.

Job Opportunities in Foreign Firms and Internal Migration in Vietnam

Using the 2004 Vietnam Migration Survey and the 2004 Vietnam Household Living Standards Survey, this paper investigates the role of employment opportunities created by foreign-owned firms as a determinant of internal migration and destination choice. Multinomial logit and conditional logit models are estimated to study both origin-and destination-specific characteristics of migrants. The paper finds that the migration response to foreign job opportunities is larger for female workers than male workers; there appears to be intermediate selection in terms of educational attainment; and migrating individuals tend to go to destinations with higher foreign employment opportunities, even when controlling for income differentials, land differentials and distances between sending and receiving areas.

The Poverty and Welfare Effects of the 2008 Food Price Crisis in Vietnam: A Decomposition Analysis

Using panel data from the Vietnam Household Living Standard Surveys (VHLSS), this paper examines the impacts of food price increases on welfare and poverty in Vietnam. It is found that on average the rise in food prices increased household welfare by 7.5 percentage points. However, the percentage of households who gained from the increase in food prices is much smaller than of those who lost. The absolute number of people living in poverty increased by about 2.5 percentage points and the poverty gap deepened, but these effects varied greatly across regions. Producers' supply reactions were moderate and on the demand side only poor consumers showed strong reactions.

The impact of health insurance for children under age 6 in Vietnam: A regression discontinuity approach

Accessing health services at an early age is important to future health and life outcomes. Yet, little is currently known on the role of health insurance in facilitating access to care for children. Exploiting a regression discontinuity design made possible through a policy to provide health insurance to pre-school aged children in Vietnam, this paper evaluates the impact of health insurance on the health care utilization outcomes of children at the eligibility threshold of six years. Using three rounds of the Vietnam Household Living Standards Survey, the study finds a positive impact on inpatient and outpatient visits and no significant impact on expenditures per visit at public facilities. We find moderately high use of private outpatient services and no evidence of a switch from private to covered public facilities under insurance. Results suggest that adopting public health insurance programs for children under age 6 may be an important vehicle to improving service utilization in a low- and middle-income country context. Challenges remain in providing adequate protections from the costs and other barriers to care.

Weaver ant role in cashew orchards in Vietnam.

Cashew (Anacardium occidentale L.) is a very important source of income for more than 200,000 farmer households in Vietnam. The present cashew productivity in Vietnam is low and unstable, and pest damage is partly responsible for this. Cashew farmers rely on pesticides to minimize the damage, resulting in adverse impacts on farm environment and farmers' health. Weaver ants (Oecophylla spp) are effective biocontrol agents of a range of cashew insect pests in several cashew-growing countries, and these ants are widely distributed in Vietnam. The aim of this study is to evaluate the potential of weaver ants in cashew orchards in Vietnam. Field surveys and field experiment were conducted in five cashew orchards from July 2006 to January 2008 in Binh Phuoc, Dong Nai, and Ba Ria Vung Tau provinces, Vietnam. Based on the field surveys, the most important pests that damage flushing foliar and floral shoots and young cashew fruits and nuts were mosquito bugs, brown shoot borers, blue shoot borers, and fruit-nut borers. The damage caused by each of these pests was significantly lower on trees with weaver ants compared with trees without the ants, showing that the ants were able to keep these pest damages under the control threshold. Regular monitoring of the field experiment showed that weaver ants were similar to insecticides for controlling mosquito bugs, blue shoot borers, fruit-nut borers, leaf rollers, and leaf miners. Aphids did not become major pests in plot with weaver ants. To manage insect pest assemblage in cashew orchards, an integrated pest management using weaver ants as a major component is discussed.