UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL STUDIES HO CHIMINH CITY THE HAGUE VIETNAM THE NETHERLANDS VIETNAM - NETHERLANDS PROGRAMME FOR M.A IN DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS IMPACTS OF MIGRATION AND MIGRANT’S GENDER ON CHILDREN’S SCHOOL ENROLLMENT AND CHILD WORK IN VIET NAM BY VÕ THỊ THU HOÀI MASTER OF ARTS IN DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY, APRIL 2014 i LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL STUDIES HO CHIMINHCITY THE HAGUE VIETNAM THE NETHERLANDS VIETNAM - NETHERLANDS PROGRAMME FOR M.A IN DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS IMPACTS OF MIGRATION AND MIGRANT’S GENDER ON CHILDREN’S SCHOOL ENROLLMENT AND CHILD WORK IN VIET NAM A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS IN DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS By VÕ THỊ THU HOÀI Academic Supervisor Dr. TRAN TIEN KHAI ii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com CERTIFICATION “I certify that the substance of this dissertation has not already been submitted for any degree and is not currently submitted for any other degree I certify that to the best of my knowledge and help received in preparing this dissertation and all source used, have been acknowledged in this dissertation” VO THI THU HOAI iii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENT This thesis would have not been fulfilled without special assistances from some individuals, group, family who have contributed to my studying process. Foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor Dr. Tran Tien Khai who continuously support of my M.A thesis by his patience, enthusiasm and immense knowledge.
His guidance helped me all the time to research and writing the thesis. Secondly, I would like to thank Dr. Truong Dang Thuy because of his dedicated support in research method during the time of this thesis. All of his help strongly to find the solution and improves this paper.
Besides, my sincere thanks also go to Dr. Nguyen Trong Hoai, Dr. Pham Khanh Nam who supervised and motivated the Class MDE 17 to finish the course on time. It is grateful to thank my classmates of MDE17 MDE18, VNP staffs for stimulating discussions, for the fun time we had together.
Last and not the least, I would like to express my grateful thank to my family who are always beside me, give me the birth and support me throughout my life April, 2014 VO THI THU HOAI Email: hoai.vn iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABSTRACT Accompany with development trend in over the world, migration flow plays important role in Vietnamese economy. It contributes to the significant income and raises the living standard for household in the country, specially, in rural areas. This paper tries to measure the impact of migration on children’s schooling enrollment and child work, addition to, determine how migrant’s gender matter in this impact. The context is applied in rural areas in Vietnam with the dataset of VHLSS 2010 by Instrument variable method to deal with the problem of endogeneity of migration.
From the first stage of migrant indicator, it indicates that instrument historical migration network and number of male adults will impact on migrant indicator significantly and these instruments are the strong instruments. The results show that the presence of migrant in the household will make the children take part in school more, at the same time make children work less. Besides, not like others researches, gender of migrant and time of migrant using in household don’t have meaning with children’s welfare. Keywords: migration, migrant’s gender, children’s school enrollment, child work v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENT ABSTRACT.
Structure of the research. 3 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW. Definition of key concept. Endogeneity of migration.
Validity of Instrument variable:. Method to run IVs regression. Source of data. Variables description and measurement:.
29 CHAPTER 4: OVERVIEW OF MIGRATION IN CASE OF VIETNAM. Socio-economic setting and migration in Vietnam. Characteristics of migrant. 39 vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.
44 CHAPTER 5: EMPERICAL ANALYSIS. Descriptions of variables. Interpretation of results. 57 CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS.
70 vii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1: Conceptual framework about impact of migration and migrant’s gender on children’s welfare.1: Histogram of expenditure per capita a year .2: Histogram of natural logarithm of expenditure per capita a year .1: International migration trend from 2000 to 2010 (Department of oversea database) .2: Number of male and female international migrant from 2006-2010 (IOM).3: Main destinations of international migrant from 2000-2010 (IOM) .4: Structure of international migration labor of Viet Nam from 2006-2010 (IOM, 2011). 43 viii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1: Description and measurement of variables .1: T-test between household with non-migrant and household with migrant .2: T-test between household with male migrant and household with female migrant .3: Factors affecting migration indicator in the household (results of first stage regression of Instrumental variables) .4: Factors affecting children’s school enrollment and child work (results of second stage regression of Instrumental variables). 56 ix LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABBREVIATIONS BLUE: Best linear unbiased estimates DID: Difference in difference GSO: General statistic office IOM: International Organization for Migration IVs: Instrumental variables OLS: Ordinary least square PSM: Propensity score matching methods. VHLSS: Vietnam Household Living Standard Survey UN: United Nations UNDP: United Nations Development Programme US: United Stages x LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.
Problem statement According to analysis of International Organization for Migration (IOM), there were more than 215 million external migrants (live outside of their countries because of many reasons) and over 700 million internal migrants (within country) in 2009. The remittance has increased gradually in recent years, besides that, remittance flow in developing countries was estimated to have totaled $401 billion in 2012. Global remittance included developed countries were estimated about $529 billion (World Bank, 2012). Remittance plays an important in economic development by reducing poverty, leading to higher living standard of human such as health, education, access technologies…improving access to formal financial sector, better preparedness for disasters, …etc.
Moreover, in coming decades, under the pressure of demographic forces, globalization and climate change, migration will increase sharply. It needs to have advanced data to research about the impacts of migration and remittances on human life and economy. From that, the policy maker can have the correct direction for migration sector in the future. From economic renovation in 1986, Viet Nam had many remarks in development process.
Among them, shifting from centrally-planned economy to a socialist-oriented market economy for industrialization, modernization was a long step in policies and economic aspect. Beside the diversification and multilateral development of open-door economic, more and more Vietnamese aboard to live and work. External migration contributes to economy and raises the living standard of remaining people. In 2012, Viet Nam was rated in seventh among the biggest receiving remittances countries ($ 10 billion) with about 4 million oversea Vietnamese.
From 1991, it was accounted about 60- 70% remittances comparing to foreign investment. Remittance not only plays an important role in Vietnam’s economy, but also affects to the demographic of Vietnamese people. According to United Nations Development Programme (2009), estimated amount 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com of money which migrant send back to their family reaches 5.5 billion dollars in 2007. In parallel with that, internal migration from rural to urban has become a general upward trend in Viet Nam a few last year.
Not only male, the share of female migrants has strongly dominated and played an important role in migrant worker (a half of internal migration in 2009). Most migrants have close relationship with their origin families through sending remittances and affecting demographic characteristics of members in the household. It is so useful for examining the impacts of migration on children’s welfare. In reality, education investment for children occupies a big part of expenditure amount in a household.
So, the matter is whether migration contributes to school enrollment of children or not and how children in migrant household will differ with no migrant household’s children. From that, need deeper research about whether gender of migrant and time of migrant living in household can impact directly to school enrollment. Some suggestions can be concluded in reality which need to be confirmed are: (1) Migrant help children have more school enrollment; (2) if household has female migrant, the level of school enrollment of children is better than household having male migrant. Two issues, school enrollment and child work, of course, are interconnected closely.
When migration affects to children’s school enrollment, it will affect to child work also. Besides that, there were many reports and papers such as Cuong (2008), Pfau and Long (2006) research about migration and remittance before. Meanwhile impact of migration and migrant’s gender on children’s school enrollment and child work in Vietnam has not been studied and need more papers having the deep view about this aspect. By applying data of Vietnam household living standard survey (VHLSS) 2010, this paper is expected to use a suitable regression to investigate the impacts of migration and migrant’s gender on children’s school enrollment and child work in Viet Nam for that time clearly.
After that, a main key factor of migrant which wasn’t recommended in the similar previous research, that is time of migrant spending in household will be used to 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com find out how migrant’s monitor effect children’s welfare. Finally, it hopes that the results of research will be helpful for migration policy. Research Objectives The aiming objectives of this research are to meet the following objectives: a) To examine the impacts of migration and migrant’s gender on children’s school enrollment and child work b) To make recommendations for government about the policies and programs which tend to promote the effectiveness of migration in children development as well as human capital investment. Research question The research will try to address some questions like that: a) How do migration and migrant’s gender significantly affect children’s school enrollment? b) How do migration and migrant’s gender significantly affect child work? 1.
Research scope As we know, in rural areas most of the family face to the poor and not sure to guarantee a complete life. Clearly, the impact level of migration mostly happens strongly in rural areas where economic situation play a key important role in outcome of people. Therefore, the research focuses on impact of migration and migrant’s gender on children’s welfare in rural areas in 2010. It aims to rural-urban and rural-aboard migration flow.
Structure of the research This research will be classified into 6 main parts. The first part introduces overview about the research, raising the problem and objectives as well as scope of the research. 3 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com The second part is the literature is the solid basis theory and previous empirical experience before relating to research. The third part shows methodology, estimated equation in the research.
It also talks about the data which used for methodology. The next part is to know how social-economic characteristic of Vietnam impact on migration and overview of migration case in Vietnam. The fifth part show the result of model after running the regression, and explain the result appear in the model. The final part is conclusion and recommendation, limitation need to take experience in the research.
4 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2. Definition of key concept Children: United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child considers children as a human being under 18 years old. Even in some definitions, child includes the fetus and the unborn.