Access to social services how poor migrants experience their life in contemporary vietnamese urban areas

277 Access to social services: How poor migrants experience their life in contemporary Vietnamese urban areas Tran Van Kham*, Pham Van Quyet** Abstract: Vietnam is on urbanization and i

277

Access to social services: How poor migrants experience their life in contemporary Vietnamese urban areas

Tran Van Kham*, Pham Van Quyet**

Abstract: Vietnam is on urbanization and industrialization process, and it is currently witnessed

the significant migration flows between rural-urban and urban-urban nationwide The large number

of migrants is the poor from rural areas who go to the urban to look for any kind of jobs, temporarily and permanently As it happened national wide, one of the critical questions appeared during the migration is that how the poor migrants experience their life in the urban life, with those social services which are more preferred and accessed by the migrants in the urban life Basing on the social inclusion approach, from survey findings with 1042 migrants in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City-Vietnam, this paper aims at identifying the life experiences of migrants in two big cities in Vietnam and suggests further research and solutions for migrant’s social inclusion through the social services accessibility

Key words: Migrants; poor migrants; Vietnam; urbanization; social services; social inclusion

1 Introduction ***

Migration is an inevitable trend of every

society that is going increasingly with more

complex and difference in its forms, structure

and other social impacts Migration does not only

make the flow of population but also create the

social impacts such as social services and welfare

practice for society in general and for the

migrants in particular Data taken from the

Census in 2009 shows Vietnamese population

reached to around 86 million, with 11.3%

increasing compared to 1999 Additionally, there

were around 7 millions of migrants in the 5

year-period from 2004-2009, with 50% increased in

comparison to the period of 1994-1999 In 2013,

the number of domestic migrants is around 1.8

millions, with 33% increased in comparison to

the average number of each year in the 5 year

* Dr, VNU-University of Social Sciences and Humanities,

Hanoi; email: khamtv@ussh.vnu.edu.vn

** Associate Prof.Dr, VNU-University of Social Sciences

and Humanities, Hanoi; email: p.quyet3@gmail.com

period of 2004 to 2009 It is witnessed the changes of migration in Vietnam with rapid speed and large number as well The provincial-provincial migration had its increased rate at 14 people among a thousand as from 29 migrants among 1000 people in 2004 to 43 migrants among 1000 in 2009 Inter-region migration is also increased with 19 migrants among 1000 in

1999 to 30 migrants among 1000 in 2009 Clearly that the migrants, in any forms, are being increased year by year and it is increased with stronger speed than the normal population growth rate in Vietnam at present time (Đặng Nguyên Anh 2012; Lê Bạch Dương and Nguyễn Thanh Liêm 2011; Tổng cục thống kê 2011; United Nations 2010; Vietnam General Statistic Office 2011) And among these forms of migration, the flow from rural to urban area, in long-term and fluctuated forms, is clearly recognized and being happened with stronger levels and degree during the urbanization process

in Vietnam recently

As the significant topic in the daily life,

research on migration and its related problems

are highly paid attention in social science

research in Vietnam recently, from different

research approaches in sociology, economics,

cultural studies, urban study… Recent research

on migrants focused more on the following

topics in Vietnam, such as the policy system on

the rural-urban migration (Đặng Nguyên Anh

2012; Lê Bạch Dương and Nguyễn Thanh Liêm

2011); the role of rural-urban migration to the rural

development (ACTIONAID 2012; Đặng Nguyên

Anh 2005; Ngô Thị Kim Dung 2011; Nguyễn

Thanh Liêm 2007; Trần Nguyệt Minh Thu 2013;

Nguyễn Văn Tiên and Nguyễn Hoàng Mai 2006;

Trương Xuân Trường 2013); or the research

about social problems, migration management

and service models for migrants in the urban

areas (ACTIONAID 2014; Duong, Linh and

Thao 2011; Phạm Quỳnh Hương 2006) or

overview of social inclusion of the poor migrant

in the urban life in many aspects (Kham and

Quyet 2015) It is clear that recent migration

research in Vietnam looks at the urban migration

and migrants in different perspectives: Role of

migration to social development, its related social

issues, and required social services for migrants

However, there is lack of specific research

emphasizing to the social policy and inclusion for

migrants and also lack of research to identify the

social service accessed by the migrants, and how

they find difficulties and advantages on such

service usage process as well This paper aims at

identifying the migrants’ experiences to the

social service in their daily life It also has the

detailed analysis on the form of difficulties, and

the service usage by migrants in Hanoi and Ho

Chi Minh City From the initial research findings,

this paper is expected to make the suggestions for

theoretical and support models in the research

topic, and also makes the other recommendations

for the support network professionally for

migrants in the contemporary urban life in

Vietnam

2 Theoretical approach and research methods

This paper is driven from the theoretical perspective of social inclusion which is widely applied in different research topics (Australian Government 2009; Hayes, Gray and Edwards 2008; Trần Văn Kham 2011) in different scopes such as migration, the social support provision for the vulnerable groups and marginalized people, and specific supports for people on the integration process This perspective is viewed from the interdisciplinary approach in social research currently Migration is known as integration process, and social inclusion is suggested as the research direction and tendency toward the sustainable development of a society, and to have the coverage supports to vulnerable groups in general and to the poor migrant in particular in the societal life

Social research basing on social inclusion perspectives are popular since the late 1990s in Western social research, while many social issues were not purely and completely dealt with the economic solutions, they required the comprehensive measures which were based not only the economic solutions but also on those ones with cultural and social backgrounds Social inclusion research is known as the direction for promoting the government role on making the equal society for all and which has enough capacities on solving social issues Such research direction is applied widely in some welfare states such as Australia, Canada, Sweden, in which the welfare system is capable to make provision and where the social services are various forms and levels for different purposes Recent biannual joint social work conferences by International Federation of Social Workers and International Association of School of Social Work paid more attention to this topic and made it as prominent forum for discussions with attractions from different approaches worldwide, especially the debates around the services for vulnerable groups

and request to have inclusive research and

specific initiatives towards the inclusive society

These recent discussions about the social

inclusion and inclusive research aimed at making

the social development and society for all

regardless the cultural backgrounds and social

status

Social inclusion based research has its

long-term history in the world In the early 1980s,

research projects in Western countries of the UK,

France and the US, and other developed

countries focused more on social exclusion

relating to the poverty, unemployment and

political crisis (Béland 2007; Daly and Silver

2008; Estivill 2003; Gordon; Pantazis and

Levitas 2006; Hills, Grand and Piachaud 2002;

Levitas 2006; Levitas et al 2007; Sheppard

2006) Such direction is increasingly paid

attention and applied in the other aspects of

culture, society and then it is replaced with the

inclusive and social inclusion perspective Social

inclusion is main societal purpose in which all

members are able to have social participation, to

make their voice and their influences and they

also have a chance to create the social

contribution for development purpose (Askonas

and Stewart 2000; Atkinson et al 2002; Klasen

2001; Mitchell and Shillington 2002) Social

inclusion is dual dimension process: each

individual is willing to and try to have social

participation in society, and in other side of

society also provides good conditions for all its

individuals to participate and join equally and

voluntarily And the social service accessing in

the community and social spheres is an identified

indicator for looking at the integration process of

individual life in society and with others in their

daily experiences

Basing on such ideas and approach, this paper aims at identifying the social service accessed by migrants in their integration process

in the urban life, with some specific comparison between the two contexts of the research that is considered as significant factor impacting to the inclusive process of the poor migrants Such social services are identified in terms of the general public services, the health care services and some specific social services relating to the daily experiences of the poor migrants The main research question for this paper as how the migrants access to social services in their daily life? Are there any difficulties and restrictions? Are there any impacted factors to their accessing?

In order to make the explanation for such research question, this research applies the data collection methods in forms of document analysis, surveys and individual interviews with migrants in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City The survey sample of the research is presented in the table 1 The research applies the data generation

by the software of SPSS version 21.0 for the survey findings for processing the quantitative data and uses the thematic analysis for the interview responses to make the qualitative data and its explanations This research follows all ethical considerations by the Nafosted Vietnam, with approval project number I3.1-2012.11 Research participants are voluntary without any coercions, all individual information is coded and anonymous

Table 1: Survey sample

Minh City

Total

Gender (%)

Educational levels (%)

Marital status (%)

3 Research findings and discussions

3.1 Social construction of migrants

The sample of this research is 1042 migrants

in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, in which the

ratio between male and female is quite equal

(51.4% and 48.6%) The mean of age among the

survey sample is 32.79 years, a significant

proportion of migrants in this research finished

the high school level, and there is also a nearly

one third of them completed the university level

(28.3%) More than one third of migrant never

married The other indicators describing the

migrants in this research are presented as

following:

3.1.1 Duration of migration

The first dimension for describing the

migrants in this research based on the

information about the migration time in the urban

area of the poor migrants, responses from the

survey found that the average time is 49 months, approximately 4 years And there is different between migrants in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City with 60.3 months and 42.08 months respectively This statistics based on the gender is quite different between male and female (51.9%

in compared to 45.9 months) Such information provides that the migrants have a long time working in the urban areas

3.1.2 Main job of migrants in the urban

One of indicators for constructing the social status of migrants is the main job in which migrants spent more times on working for money during his/her migration In overall responses, nearly 50% of research participant shows that they work for small companies in some industrial zones Among the other half, the almost migrants work as free laborer (19.5%), and other forms of housekeepers, peddlers, etc The table 2 shows the forms of job by migrants

Table 2: The main job of migrants

On comparing the difference between the

urban areas, the job styles for migrants are also

various There are more migrants working in the

companies, in industrial zones/parks in Hanoi,

where as there are more migrants working as the

free laborers in Ho Chi Minh City, except the

form of house-keeper The significant factors for

making the difference between two big cities are

based on the cultural, social and economic

developments in which require the other forms of

employment and also make the migration trends

differently The difference between two places of

studies in compared to the form of migrant’s jobs

is closely related basing on the Chi-square test in

SPSS, as all the indicators in table 2 have their p

value at 0.000 < 0.05, which states that these

statistical meanings of close relationship between

the place of migration and forms of jobs by

migrants

The jobs by male and female migrants are

also different: there are more male migrants

working as workers, and free laborers, while

more female migration worker working as housekeepers, peddlers Such forms of jobs based on gender-differences are meaningful and compatible to social development in Vietnam, and the co-relation between gender and forms of migrant’s job is also significant and closed relationship with Chi-square test values of all variables in table 2 at 000 < 05

3.1.3 Job status

The employment status, as presented in table

3, is explored in terms of long-term or short-term, such indicator illustrate the potential sustainability of the migrant’s life Responses from the research state that almost migrants signed the one-year contract to the employer accounted for 44.8%, or if it is combined those with the contract from 6 months, the numbers of contracted migrants is up to 57.3% However, there is a critical percentage of 27.7% of migrant working without the contracts, as almost of them are free-laborers, housekeepers or peddlers

Table 3: Job status

Chi-square test, value = 93.946, p=0.000

On the comparison between two research

places, migrants in Hanoi aims to find the

long-term and sustainable jobs than those in Ho Chi

Minh city, the number of migrants with at least 6

months-contract in Hanoi is two times in

compared to those in Ho Chi Minh city

Migrants in Ho Chi Minh City aim to have jobs

without contract as more people works as

free-laborers, self-employee in comparison to Hanoi

The Chi-square test with value and its significant

statistics between age group, gender and forms of

employment contract clearly stated that there is

closed relationship between them as p=0.016 and

p=0.000 respectively

3.1.4 Forms of settlement

Living in the new area needs following the law requirements, it is required to declare someone status to the local officials for residency (temporary or permanent) In Vietnam, in last few years, there are many debates about how to make the declaration of settlement for all migrated people in the urban cities From survey responses, only 6.7% of migrants has the resident

registration (hộ khẩu) in the research contexts,

almost migrants have their temporary residency with 83.9%, and the rest with 9.5% of migrants who do not declare their staying to the local official and police officials The forms of settlement are presented in details in the table 4 Table 4: Forms of migrant settlement (%)

From data presented in table 4, this research

found that there is clear difference between

Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City in aspect of

settlement of the migrants Migrants in Hanoi

tend to register their staying, permanent and

temporary, to local authorities higher than that in

Ho Chi Minh City In the opposite, migrants in

Ho Chi Minh City who do not register to local

officials account with smaller ratio than those in

Hanoi, only one third of non-resident registers in

Hanoi Migrants in Ho Chi Minh City tend to have the short-term or temporary staying more than those in Hanoi, but they are the good followers to the legal requirements of settlements

in this research

It is notable that around 9.5% of migrants never make any registration to local authorities, the main reason which research identifies from research interviews is that “migrants do not have enough time to do or they are afraid of meeting

to the local authorities” or “migrants report only

to the households of their staying” The

responses to the survey are same reasons for the

non-registration as the migrants do not know

what to do (accounts for 23.5%) and they are

afraid or fearful (accounts for 79.6%) Another

reason is that they find unnecessary also accounts

for significant proportion with more than one

fourth of migrants in the research as 27.6% The

others are expressed by the migrants, which are

fearful to meet the police staff with 10.2% or

being unaccepted for settlement also account up

to 5.1% So, it is found that the findings from this

research are similar to previous ones on

discussing the difficulty and complexity about

the residential registration in local community

As its complexities, the migrants are so hesitated

to contact to the local authorities for registration

Also from the interviews, migrants express their

expectation to have the simple legal procedures

and instructions for migrants to apply for the

temporarily registration to the local authorities

3.2 Accessing to social services in daily life of

the poor migrants

3.2.1 The general or public services

Social inclusion of an individual is calculated

or viewed from his or her access to existed social services in the contemporary life So, the availability of social services for all people is significant indicator for a view of welfare society The accessibility of migrants to such service is the variable for researching the social inclusion

of migrants in the new living contexts The question in this section is that whether the poor migrants face the difficulties in accessing such services

In order to account the service access by migrants, this research presents 10 variables of the general services in which everyone needs to

do in the common life In such services, the most common one in which the migrants do are the healthcare service at the most frequent, then the activities on meeting the local authorities and legal procedures with lesser frequent In the opposite activities, the migrants hardly use in their life including the loan from banks or the social organizations/unions, and the birth certification… It is quite clear and compatible to the present regulation about making the loan from the bank for only those with resident registration in their living areas On accessing such services, migrants face their difficulties as presented in the means value in the table 5 Table 5: The difficulties on accessing the social services by migrants

Mean values 1

As table 5 shows, it is found that accessing to

such services is not so much difficulties from

almost responses The responses with level

“difficulty” are based on the loans from the bank,

or social organizations/unions, education for

kids, and birth registration for migrant’s newborn

kids On comparison between two research

settings, migrants in Ho Chi Minh City met less

difficulty than those in Hanoi in almost services,

except the service of

“loan from the banks” and “loans from social

organization/unions” Additionally, migrants in

Ho Chi Minh city find their advantages on contacting to local authorities and police officials than those from Hanoi, in spite of the responses are still closed to the difficulties at all aspects Among the migrants in Ho Chi Minh City, the contact to the local authorities is the most advantages in comparison to other services without any difficulties

1

Table 6: EFA on the difficulties on accessing the social services by migrants

1 The mean values presented here basing on the Likert model with three items: 1-Most difficulty, 2-Difficulty and 3-No difficulty This values mean is calculated on each item meanings as (3-1)/3=0.66 So, the mean values from 1 to below 1.67: most difficulty, from 1.67 to below 2.34: somehow difficulty; from 2.64 is not difficulty

On this analysis of accessing to the general

services, the testing values of Cronbach’s Alpha

also stated that the construction of observed

variables is meaningful statistically (with

Cronbach’s Alpha is 0.941) Furthermore, on the

exploratory factor analysis (EFA) of these

variables also provide the KMO value at 0.849,

its Eigenvalues percentage is 75.9%, and Barlett

Test’s significant value is 0.000 which lead to the

confirmation that there is closed relationship

among 10 variables of general services And this

EFA also provides the two groups of variables

with high loading factors (all loading factors are

higher than 0.5), which are satisfied with EFA

statistically These groups of factors are

presented in the Table 6

The first group of factors includes the variables

of contacting police officials, contacting the local

authorities, legal procedure services, healthcare,

electricity setup and water setup The second

groups consist of factors on education for kid, birth

registration for newborn, loans from the banks, and

loans from the social organizations/unions

Applying the syntax of computer variables of

factors in each group, the means of each group also

makes the explanation about the difficulties of

migrants on accessing to such services It is found

that the migrants meet the difficulties of the first

group than the second one Each group mean

values are also various basing on the research

setting and gender variable Migrants in Hanoi

face more difficult than those in Ho Chi Minh

City, and male migrants also face more difficulties

than those female in both groups Such factors of

context and gender are impacted ones on making

the migrants services accessibility in their daily

life Additionally, in comparing between the age

groups, it is found that migrants in group of less

than 25 years old faces higher difficulties in

accessing general services than the other age

groups, the older groups face lesser difficulties on

such accessibility in this research

Responses from the interviews are

compatible to the content of the survey and

making further explanations as why migrants are fearful to contacting the local authorities and police officials as they lack of their free time and lack of their attention to the local activities Almost migrants express that the most consideration on living and working in the urban during their migration is that how to earn money for making the contribution to their family living

in the rural areas And almost responses to the migration difficulties on service accessibility are based on the individual migrant difficulties only, and the migrants also express that they do not find any other services for them so they are lack

of their social inclusion and integration with

other resident in their living areas

3.2.2 Usage of healthcare services

In the above sections, this paper presented the migrant accessibility to the general services in urban life relating to their daily experiences The findings also express that migrant’s access to the general services at the low frequent level, and also face the difficulties from both sides, by themselves and by society Following such explanations, this research further focuses on the other aspect of healthcare services during and before the migrations, which healthcare services are preferred by migrants to use while they were sick and have health troubles

In the forms of healthcare insurance

Looking at the forms of health insurance is the first aspect of healthcare service by migrants

in this research Currently, there are some forms

of healthcare insurance in Vietnam, in forms of compulsory healthcare insurance, volunteer healthcare insurance, healthcare insurance for social policy holders, social insurance, long-life insurance, and so on The usage of such insurances is compared between the research contexts and between migrated time and pre-migrated time

During the pre-migrated times, the migrants did not pay more attention on using the healthcare insurance in any forms, which were

clearly indentified in both research contexts On

such period, the migrant emphasized more on the

volunteer one in which migrants in Hanoi

showed the higher ratio than those in Ho Chi Minh City

Table 7: Usage of healthcare insurance by migrants (%)

Pre-migration

During migration

Pre-migration

During migration

Healthcare Insurance for social

policy holders

During the migration, the social insurance is

preferred one by migrants, other healthcare

insurance (both voluntary and compulsory) were

also at high preference by migrants Table 7 also

illustrates that the migrants seem pay more

attention on using the health insurance while

migrating to the urban Migrants in Ho Chi Minh

City preferred the social insurance, compulsory

and volunteer healthcare insurance rather than

migrants in Hanoi did However, migrants in

Hanoi preferred to healthcare insurance for social

policy takers and long life insurance higher than

the migrants in Ho Chi Minh City In spite of

having preference to the healthcare insurance, but the number of migrants responses to its usage is still at low ratio

Usage of healthcare institutions

This section explores the way in which migrants use the healthcare services on health treatment in case of being sickness In such situation, responses from the survey as illustrated

in table 8 shows that a large number of migrants applies the self-treatment method as buying medicine in pharmacy shops and staying at home, and the other choice is usage of the public medical services

Table 8: Usage of healthcare institutions (%)

Institutions Hanoi Ho Chi Minh City Total