VIETNAM ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES Vietnam’s Household Registration System HONG DUC PUBLISHING HOUSE VIETNAM ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES Vietnam’s Household Registration System Hong Duc Publishing House Ha Noi, June 2016 II Acronyms EA Enumeration area GSO General Statistics Office HKQS Ho Khau Qualitative Study HRS Household Registration Survey IOS Vietnam Institute of Sociology MDRI Mekong Development Research Institute MOLISA Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs UPS Urban Poverty Surveys VASS Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences VHLSS Vietnam Household Living Standard Surveys III Acknowledgements The report was written by a World Bank from the Mekong Development Research team in partnership with the Institute of Institute and Nguyen Duc Vinh, Nguyen Sociology of the Vietnam Academy of Thi Minh Phuong, Tran Nguyet Minh Social Sciences, with inputs from other Thu, Ho Ngoc Cham, Nghiem Thi Thuy researchers. The report is a product of and Nguyen Nhu Trang from the Insti- effective team collaboration and valuable tute of Sociology of the Vietnam Acad- contributions of international and local emy of Social Sciences. The report ben- consultants. efited from technical guidance provided The team benefitted from discussions by Philip O’Keefe (Lead Economist, So- with the Social Affairs Committee of the cial Protection and Labor Global Prac- National Assembly during the initial tice), Minh Van Nguyen (Senior Econ- stages of the development of the report. omist, Governance Global Practice) and The report also draws from the ideas Kristen Himelein (Senior Economist, presented at a consultation workshop Poverty and Equity Global Practice) and which was held in Ha Noi in August, comments from Michel Welmond (Pro- 2015. The workshop was organized by gram Leader), Kari Hurt (Senior Op- the Mekong Development Research In- erations Officer, Health, Nutrition and stitute and Institute of Sociology in co- Population Practice), Huong Lan Dao operation with the World Bank. (Operations Officer, Health, Nutrition The report was written by Gabriel De- and Population Practice) and Reena Ba- mombynes (Senior Economist, Poverty diani-Magnusson (Senior Economist, and Equity Global Practice) and Linh Poverty and Equity Global Practice). Hoang Vu (Economist, Poverty and Eq- Ngan Thuy Nguyen and Linh Anh uity Global Practice) drawing on contri- Thi Vu (both World Bank) provided ex- butions from Jorge Martinez-Vazquez cellent administrative support. Chi Kim (Georgia State University), Nguyen Khac Tran (Communications Associate) pro- Giang (Consultant), Giang Tam Nguyen vided excellent support to the dissemina- (Consultant), Dang Nguyen Anh (In- tion and launch of the final report. The stitute of Sociology), Dewen Wang (Se- report was translated into Vietnamese nior Social Protection Economist, Social by Truong Quoc Hung. Cover photo was Protection and Labor Global Practice) credited to Lai Hong Vy. and Phung Duc Tung (Mekong Deve­ The project was overseen by Salman lopment Research Institute). The report Zaidi (Practice Manager, Poverty and also incorporated inputs from Nguyen Equity Global Practice), Victoria Kwak- Viet Cuong, Nguyen Thi Nhung, Nguyen wa (Country Director for Vietnam) and Mai Trang, Dam Thi Tra My, Tran Anh Sandeep Mahajan (Program Leader). Vu, Pham Hoang Anh, and Le Hai Chau V Contents Acronyms ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................II Acknowledgements ..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................III Tables ...............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................VI Boxes .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................VII Figures ...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................VII Executive summary ...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................IX Chapter 1. History, legal regime, and data ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................1 History of ho khau ..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................1 Recent changes and the current legal ho khau regime ................................................................................................................................................................................................................4 Previous data on ho khau ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................7 New data: the Household registration survey and the Ho Khau qualitative study ......................................................................................................................9 Chapter 2. Basic characteristics of the population by registration status .................................................................................................................................10 Employment and wages .....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................18 Income and expenditure .....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................23 Chapter 3. Ho khau and services access .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................25 School enrollment ..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................26 Access to health care ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................30 Social participation .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................33 Social protection ...............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................34 Electricity .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................37 General services access and experiences with the Ho khau system ......................................................................................................................................................................38 Chapter 4. Ho khau in the media, policy discussions, and citizen perceptions ..............................................................................................................42 Media coverage ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................42 Debate among public officials ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................47 Citizen views on the ho khau system ...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................48 Chapter 5. Fiscal issues associated with Ho khau ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................53 The basic issue ......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................53 The structure of intergovernmental fiscal relations ...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................54 Fiscal impact of changes in population ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................56 Chapter 6. Conclusions and policy directions ...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................64 Notes ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................70 Bibliography .....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................73 Annexes .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................81 Annex 1: Sampling and Survey Weight Calculations for the 2015 Household Registration Survey ..............................................................81 Annex 2: Education Regression Tables .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................83 Annex 3: Health Regression Tables ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................84 Annex 4: Social Protection Regression Tables ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................85 VI Tables Table 1: Regulations relating to ho khau registration 1957-2014 ...............................................................................................................................................................................3 Table 2: Estimated percentage of population by province without permanent registration .......................................................................................12 Table 3: Year of arrival to current province for those without permanent registration ..........................................................................................................13 Table 4: Time spent at current residence in last 12 months, by registration status ......................................................................................................................14 Table 5: Household demographic characteristics ......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................15 Table 6: Education attainment of adults (Age 25+) by registration status .................................................................................................................................................16 Table 7: Individual demographic characteristics by registration status and province ..............................................................................................................17 Table 8: Employment by registration status .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................19 Table 9: Wage regressions including registration status, 2009 and 2015 ......................................................................................................................................................23 Table 10: Household income and expenditure by head registration status ....................................................................................................................................................24 Table 11: Public and private net school enrollment rates by registration status ....................................................................................................................................28 Table 12: Average public school annual education costs by registration status and school level (million VND) ............................29 Table 13: Average annual educational costs by private vs. public and school level (million VND) .........................................................................29 Table 14: Health insurance coverage rates by age group and registration status .................................................................................................................................31 Table 15: Location of registered health care facility ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................32 Table 16: Participation rates of households in organizations and social activities ..............................................................................................................................33 Table 17: Percentage of households designated poor by province .................................................................................................................................................................................35 Table 18: Percentage of households participating in organizations and social activities .......................................................................................................36 Table 19: Official electricity tariffs ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................37 Table 20: Experiences of citizens with ho khau .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................40 Table 21: Payments for changing registration status .............................................................................................................................................................................................................................41 Table 22: Media coverage of the ho khau system, 2007 - 2015 ...........................................................................................................................................................................................43 Table 23: Attitudes towards ho khau: percentages who agree with the following statements .................................................................................49 Table 24: Mean of index of support for ho khau system ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................50 Table 25: Attitudes towards ho khau in Ha Noi vs Ho Chi Minh City: percentages who agree with the following statements .....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................51 Table 26: Simulation of the total impact of change in population of 1 person on each line of the budget 2011 (in thousands of VND) ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................61 Table 27: Revenue, transfers and expenditure per capita of the top 8 richest and most populous provinces, 2011 (in thousands of VND) ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................62 VII Boxes Box 1: Household and residence registration systems around the world ..................................................................................................................................................5 Box 2: Recruitment for public administration jobs in the capital city ...............................................................................................................................................................20 Box 3: Shortcomings in health care by health insurance cards of temporary residents ...................................................................................................36 Box 4: Procedures that require household registration books in the application files, posted at the ward-level People’s Committee office ................................................................................................................................................................................................39 Box 5: Hukou reform in China ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................65 Figures Figure 1: Many urban migrants lack permanent registration status in major urban areas, 2015: Percent of population lacking permanent registration in province of residence ............................................. 11 Figure 2: Distribution of wages (in thousands of VND per hour) by registration status ................................................. 21 Figure 3: School attendance rates by age for permanent vs. temporary registrants ...................................................... 27 Figure 4: Trends in google searches in Vietnam for ho khau .......................................................................................... 46 IX Executive summary The household registration system make up three-fourths of all employ- known as ho khau has been a part of the ees of foreign firms in the surveyed fabric of life in the country for over 50 areas (Ho Chi Minh City, Ha Noi, Da years. The system was implemented as an Nang, Binh Duong, and Dak Nong.) instrument of public security, economic • In material economic terms and in planning, and control of migration, at the labor market, temporary regis- a time when the state played a stronger trants no longer face disadvantages, role in direct management of the econ- except that they are largely excluded omy and the life of its citizens. Although from public sector employment. the system has become less rigid over • Although gaps are less severe than time, concerns persist that ho khau limits suggested in earlier studies, tempo- the rights and access to public services of rary registrants continue to face lim- those who lack permanent registration itations in service access, particularly in their place of residence. Due largely with regard to public schools, health to data constraints, however, previous insurance for young children, and ba- discussions about the system have relied sic procedures like registering a mo- largely on anecdotal or partial informa- torcycle. tion. This report attempts to fill that gap, • 70% of citizens in surveyed areas be- by bringing new data and empirical anal- lieve the system limits the rights of ysis to the table. The report covers five people without ho khau and should areas: 1) the history of the system, 2) the be made less restrictive. size and characteristics of the population • Some policymakers have raised con- without permanent registration, 3) ser- cerns that relaxing the system could vice access of those without permanent result in increased migration to urban registration, 4) the debate about the sys- centers, straining public services and tem in the media and among policymak- municipal finances. However, taking ers, and 5) the fiscal impacts of increased into account impacts on revenue and migration. A final chapter considers pos- transfers, the net fiscal impact is likely sible policy directions. Key findings from positive or only mildly negative. the study are as follows: • At least 5.6 million people lack per- Drawing from historical roots as well manent ho khau in their place of resi- as the model of China’s hukou, the ho dence (and have only temporary reg- khau system was established in 1964 as istrant status), including 36% of the an instrument of public security and population of Ho Chi Minh City and state management of the economy. The 18% of the population of the Ha Noi. 1964 law established the basic parame- • Those without permanent registration ters of the system: every citizen was to be work overwhelmingly in the private registered as a resident in one and only sector, mostly in manufacturing, and household at the place of permanent res- X V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M  EXECUTIVE SUMMARY idence, and movements could take place (long-term temporary) and KT4 (short- only with the permission of authorities. term temporary) still exists in practice. Controlling rates of movement to cities Understanding of the system has was part of the system’s early motivation, been hampered by the fact that those and the system’s ties to rationing, public without permanent registration have services, and employment made it an not appeared in most conventional effective check on unsanctioned migra- sources of socioeconomic data. A new tion. Transfer of one’s ho khau from one household survey and qualitative study place to another was possible in princi- carried out for this report in Ha Noi, Ho ple but challenging in practice. Before Chi Minh City, Da Nang, Binh Duong, Doi Moi— the transition towards a more and Dak Nong made particular efforts to market orientation in the late 1980s— include all households regardless of reg- few people moved without the sanction istration status. of authorities, and those that did strug- Estimates from the 2015 House- gled to survive without local ho khau. hold Registration Survey (HRS) in- The force of the system has dimin- dicate that there are more than 5.6 ished since the launch of Doi Moi as well million people with permanent regis- as a series of reforms starting in 2006. tration in their place of residence, far Most critically, it is no longer necessary more than implied by previous sur- to obtain permission from the local au- veys. This is a lower limit on the total thorities in the place of departure to reg- number without permanent registration ister in a new location. Additionally, ob- because the survey only covered one of taining temporary registration status in a the three provinces near Ho Chi Minh new location is no longer difficult. How- City with large numbers of migrants ever, in recent years the direction of pol- (Binh Duong), and did not include the icy changes regarding ho khau has been neighboring provinces of Dong Nai and varied. A 2013 law explicitly recognized Ba Ria-Vung Tau, which also probably the authority of local authorities to set have large numbers of residents without their own policies regarding registration, permanent registration. Everyone cap- and some cities have tightened the re- tured in the survey without permanent quirements for obtaining permanent sta- registration reported having some form tus. The 2012 Capital City Law raised the of temporary registration. Most indi- bar for permanent residence in Ha Noi, cated that they have long-term tempo- most notably by requiring applicants to rary registration, and many have been have been residing in the city for at least living for years without permanent reg- three years. In Da Nang, local authorities istration. Forty percent of those with- also created a new set of restrictions for out permanent ho khau moved to their permanent residence applicants. current province before 2010. Actual administrative practice var- Temporary registrant households ies from what is stipulated in the legal have relatively few children and larger regime. To take one example, the 2006 numbers of people of working age. Just Law on Residence collapsed the four ho 13% of temporary registrant households khau categories (KT1, KT2, KT3, and have children, compared to 22% of per- KT4) into two—permanent and tempo- manent registrant households. Almost rary—but the distinction between KT3 no one with temporary registrant status EXECUTIVE SUMMARY V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M XI is over age 60. There are no sharp differ- more likely to be enrolled in more ex- ences in gender or ethnicity by registra- pensive private schools. Interviews con- tion status. ducted as part of the 2015 Ho khau Qual- Temporary registrants have a very itative Study (HKQS) indicate that these different employment profile from patterns are due to the fact that many permanent registrants. Seventy per- schools give permanent registrants high- cent of temporary registrant workers er priority for enrollment. are in the private sector (twice the rate Despite a national policy of free among permanent registrants), and health insurance for children under 30% work for foreign firms. In the five age 6, one-quarter of temporary reg- provinces surveyed, three-fourths of all istrant children in that age group lack foreign firm employees have temporary health insurance. Qualitative evidence registration. The wage premium asso- indicates that this is due in part to their ciated with permanent registration in registration status. Some temporary reg- 2009 had disappeared by 2015, and av- istrants also face obstacles in designating erage wages, expenditures, and income a local facility as their health care loca- of temporary registrants are now sim- tion, which means that they pay higher ilar to or slightly higher than those of fees for health care. permanent registrants. However, tem- Additionally, qualitative evidence porary registrants still face barriers to suggests that policies on whether tem- public sector employment. porary registrants can qualify for so- Temporary registrant households cial assistance are inconsistent. Tem- send substantial amounts of remittanc- porary registrants are slightly less likely es. Among permanent registrant house- than comparable permanent registrants holds, remittances are negligible. Among to appear on the “poor list”, but overall temporary registrant households, remit- rates of appearing on the poor list and tances average 236,000 VND per capita receiving most forms of social assistance per month—approximately 8% of house- are low (regardless of registration status) hold income—and are higher among in areas where temporary registrants those with short-term temporary status. live. Temporary registrants also face dif- More than half (51%) of all temporary ficulties in conducting basic government registrant households report having sent procedures like registering a motorcycle. some remittances. The impacts of the ho khau system Although broadly the gaps in ser- have gender dimensions. First, quali- vice access are less severe than those tative interviews indicate that women suggested by earlier studies, temporary typically take primary responsibility for registrants continue to face limited ac- navigating the hurdles of health and ed- cess to some public services. Children ucation access for their children. Second, with temporary registration are substan- the gap in lower secondary enrollment tially less likely to be enrolled in school for temporary vs. permanent registrants at the lower and upper secondary lev- is much larger for girls. The reason for els, even after controlling for individual this gender difference is uncertain but and household characteristics. At lower may indicate that temporary registrant levels, overall enrollment rates are sim- parents are willing to make greater ef- ilar but temporary registrants are much forts to overcome ho khau barriers for XII V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M  EXECUTIVE SUMMARY male children. As in the population as household survey, few reported such a whole, women make up about half of payments. Half of temporary registrants temporary registrants. Women wage voice an intention to stay in their place earners in the survey sample earn on av- of residence, and essentially all of that erage 12% less than observationally sim- group expressed a desire to obtain per- ilar men, but those with temporary regis- manent status. The large number of peo- tration are not especially disadvantaged. ple who have held temporary registrant A surprisingly large number of tem- for many years, despite an expressed de- porary registrants in Binh Duong are sire to obtain permanent status, suggests ethnic minorities, which suggests that that barriers to changing registration are ethnic minority migration may have still formidable. accelerated in recent years. Ethnic mi- Analysis of press coverage, state- norities constitute 14% of Vietnam’s ments of public officials, and citizen population and have traditionally had views expressed in both the HKQS and low geographic mobility, which has been the HRS provide a sense of the range of one factor in their relatively high poverty opinions on the household registration rates. Only 1% percent of the permanent system. Since 2006, the media has por- registrant population are ethnic minori- trayed an intense discussion on ho khau, ties in the major urban areas covered reflecting a high level of citizen interest. by the survey (Ha Noi, Da Nang, Binh Newspaper stories have presented a di- Duong, and Ho Chi Minh City). How- versity of views, increasingly including ever, ethnic minorities are a much larger strong criticisms of the system. Recent fraction of temporary registrants, partic- newspaper stories and social media have ularly in Binh Duong, where they con- highlighted individual tales of hardship stitute 7.6% of long-term temporary and associated with ho khau. Likewise, public 11.3% percent of short-term temporary officials have engaged in vigorous debate registrants. If this pattern is sustained, about the system. migration may become an increasing Citizens have mixed views of the factor in poverty reduction for ethnic existing ho khau system. Substantial minorities. numbers of citizens express support for Barriers to obtaining permanent elements of the system, agreeing that is registration status take two forms. The necessary to ensure public safety and first consists of the official requirements, limit migration. At the same time, a including a long period of temporary res- large majority say that it limits the rights idence (two years in most locations and of people without permanent status, that three in Ha Noi) as well as rules that ap- it induces corruption, and that it should plicants live in dwellings with minimum be made less restrictive. Qualified sup- living space per person. The second type port for the system can be understood of barrier is document requirements that given that ho khau has been part of the some applicants may have trouble satis- fabric of life in Vietnam. Most citizens fying. The extent of bribery associated see the system as an essential part of the with the system is unclear; in qualitative government’s functions. interviews, numerous respondents re- A primary motivation for maintain- ported having to make large payments ing a restrictive ho khau system, ex- to change registration status, but in the pressed by citizens and policymakers EXECUTIVE SUMMARY V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M XIII alike, is to reduce migration to urban mates of the magnitude of this effect have cities. Local officials worry in particu- not been made, relative to the larger forc- lar about the burden that new migrants es driving Vietnam’s economy, the over- place on public services. In fiscal terms, all impact of the ho khau system is likely there are concerns about the strain on to be small. Nonetheless, to maximize its subnational budgets, particularly for growth potential the country should be health and education, due to the arrival encouraging urbanization rather than of migrants. A full accounting of the fis- retaining barriers intended to limit the cal impact of migration requires taking arrival of new migrants. Other potential into account their impact on not just ex- economic costs could be associated with penditures, but also revenues and inter- challenges temporary registrants may governmental transfers. These impacts face in formalizing businesses as well as can be approximated by examining how the time and travel costs they face in re- each of these three streams vary by pop- turning to their place of origin for many ulation across provinces, controlling for procedures. An additional potential cost province characteristics. comes from the fact that temporary reg- A cross-provincial statistical analy- istrant households may leave children sis shows that an additional person is with relatives in their hometowns, where associated with greater expenditure, they have greater school access. This phe- revenue, and transfers. An addition- nomenon of “left behind children” may al person added to the population of have negative implications for children. a province or city is associated with an There are two main mutually com- increase of 388,000 to 456,000 VND per patible options for reform of the sys- year on health and education expendi- tem. The first is to reduce the obstacles ture. The net fiscal impact of an addition- to obtaining permanent registration. al migrant is somewhat uncertain but is This could be done through shortening much more positive than a focus on ex- (or eliminating) the time period required penditures along would imply, ranging before residents can apply for perma- across specifications from -697,000 to nent status as well as limiting the set of +3,346,000 VND per year. requirements that can be imposed on There are multiple reasons to con- permanent status applicants. The second sider reform of the ho khau system. is to reduce differences in service access First, the barriers temporary registrants between those with permanent and tem- face to services and public employment porary access. This could be partially are unfair. This is of particular concern accomplished through a number of ser- for barriers that impact children—such vice-specific measures along with clarifi- as those related to health insurance and cation and enforcement of existing rules. education—as they may limit the pos- The designation of a health facility could sibilities for intergenerational mobility. be fully decoupled from residency, so Second, the system creates economic that temporary registrants could choose costs. By effectively increasing the costs facilities where they live. Free provision of moving to cities, ho khau decreas- of insurance to children under 6 regard- es migration, providing a brake on the less of registration status could be better country’s structural transformation and enforced. Permanent registration re- economic growth. While reliable esti- quirements for public employment could XIV V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M  EXECUTIVE SUMMARY be eliminated, and government proce- ultimately supplant ho khau. While not a dures like registering a motorcycle could reform to the household registration sys- be made available explicitly for tempo- tem per se, in tandem with the two other rary registrants. The government has reform paths described above, the new also taken the initial steps towards cre- system could help reduce the adminis- ating a national population database and trative burden of household registration citizen identification card which could on both the government and citizens. CHAPTER 1 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M 1 1 CHAPTERS History, legal regime, and data The ho khau system was established in 1964 as an instrument of public security and state management of the economy. Controlling rates of movement to cities was part of the system’s early motivation, and the system’s ties to rationing, public services, and employment made it an effective check on unsanctioned migration. The force of the system has diminished since the launch of Doi Moi and a series of reforms starting in 2006. In recent years, however, policy changes regarding ho khau have been varied and have moved towards a more restrictive regime in some cases, particularly in Ha Noi. Understanding of the system has been hampered by the fact that those without perma- nent registration have not appeared in most conventional sources of socioeconomic data. A new household survey and qualitative study carried out for this report in Ha Noi, Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang, Binh Duong, and Dak Nong made particular efforts to include all households regardless of registration status. History of ho khau and other services. Migrants moving to a new community were considered “so- journers” who were not eligible for reg- 1. Vietnam’s 1960 Constitution istration. Later, the French colonial re- declared “Citizens of the Democratic gime imposed a system of tax cards and Republic of Vietnam enjoy freedom of village-issued residence papers, with re- residence and movement.” Subsequent strictions on travel and migration. The revisions to the Constitution in 1980, principal model, however, for ho khau 1992, and 2013 contained similar guar- was China’s hukou1. antees. At the same time, since the first years of independence, the government 2. As in China, the system in Viet- has regulated residence and restricted nam was used for economic manage- movement through the ho khau system. ment as well as for internal security. The system was derived in part from ear- Authorities were worried that a surge of lier systems of household registration. In rapid urbanization would generate un- pre-colonial Vietnam, individual adult employment and disrupt state planning. males were registered on the local tax- After independence in 1954, the newly payer rolls, and unregistered members formed government of the Democratic faced restricted access to communal land Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) 2 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M  CHAPTER 1 was also concerned about opposition to 4. The ho khau system was its authority, and restrictions on move- launched in 1964 by Decree 104/CP, ment under the registration system were which set out the basic parameters of seen as an important security tool. The the system. The decree was issued at the initial government decrees creating the request of the Minister of Public Secu- system reflect the dual motivations for rity, which was made responsible for its the system. implementation, reflecting the signifi- cance of the system as a security measure 3. The first representation of the in a nation at war. The decree describes system in a national legal document the purposes of the system as follows: came in 1957 with Decree 495TTg, … to enhance public security, to serve which explicitly sought to limit the the interests of the people, and to help movement of citizens from rural areas in collecting population statistics … to the cities of Ha Noi and Haiphong. with a view to formulating and im- The decree stated plementing policies and plans by the In our current economic condition, State. the phenomenon of rural people moving to cities have caused many 5. The 1964 law established the ba- disadvantages, increasing the number sic parameters of the system: every citi- of unemployed in the cities while re- zen was to be registered as a resident in ducing the number of farmers in the one and only household in the location rural areas, thus affecting the imple- of his or her permanent residence, and mentation of the State plans. movements could take place only with The decree instituted a number of mea- the permission of authorities. The law sures intended to discourage migration was subject to modification over time to the cities, including the following: (see Table 1 on next page) and was su- Besides educating and communi- perseded by a new Law on Residence cating to the people, the Adminis- passed in 2006. The current ho khau re- trative Committees of the cities and gime reflects the 2006 law as modified in the line ministries should study nec- 2013 and 2014, as well as a 2012 law with essary economic and administrative specific provisions for Ha Noi. measures to limit the farmers from moving to cities, such as restricting household registration management procedures and limiting street vendor activities. CHAPTER 1 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M 3 TABLE 1 Regulations relating to ho khau registration 1957-2014 Document No. Date Topic Key elements Circular 495-TTg 10/23/1957 Restriction of migrants from Restrictive household registration stipulated as measure to the rural areas to the city (Ha reduce urban migration. Noi and Hai Phong) Decree 104/CP 06/27/1964 Registration and manage- Ministry of Public Security placed in charge of ho khau regis- ment of ho khau – The first tration. All Vietnamese citizens are issued a ho khau booklet. legal creation of ho khau Local authority has to be informed of changes in household system membership (birth, death, marriage). A certificate is re- quired for migration of a household. Decree 4-HDBT 01/07/1988 Registration and manage- Refinements to management system. ment of ho khau Decree 51-CP 05/10/1997 Registration and manage- Refinements to management system. ment of ho khau Circular 6-TT/ 6/20/1997 Registration and manage- Ministry of Home Affairs placed in charge of registration and BNV(C13) ment of ho khau management of ho khau system. The circular specifies cases when citizens can change their ho khau status. New condi- tions for ho khau registration, including type of residential housing are introduced. Additional refinements to system. Article 81/2006/ 11/29/2006 Residential Law Substantial revisions to system. Ministry of Public Security QH11 placed in charge of ho khau registration. Collapse of four sta- tus categories into two: temporary and permanent. Article 25/2012/ 2012 Capital City Law New requirements for permanent registration in Ha Noi are QH13 introduced, including a 3-year period of living in the city. Article 36/2013/ 06/20/2013 Modifications, additions of Minor revisions. QH13 residential law Decree 31/2014/ 04/18/2014 Notes on implementation of Using ho khau regulations to limit the rights of citizens is ND-CP residential law prohibited. To register as a permanent resident, one must live in the city for one year (when migrating into suburban district) and two years (when migrating into urban district) of a municipalities of Vietnam based on temporary residen- tial booklet record. Regulation of migrating into Ha Noi fol- lows the Capital Law. Centrally administered cities introduced stricter require- ments for ho khau registration, allowed by the 2013 Revised Law on Residence. The most commonly used tool is a mini- mum required area of rental housing. Source: Official legal documents 4 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M  CHAPTER 1 6. In Vietnam’s pre-Doi Moi era, 8. After the launch of reforms, the the ho khau system was tightly tied to end of cooperative landholding, and access to food rations, land, housing, the elimination of the ration system, ho education, health, and employment. khau became less essential to survival. Given the pervasive grip of state control, One observer noted lack of ho khau meant living without the The abolition of the state subsidy rights and services afforded by the state system in the late 1980s has made to its citizens. A Vietnamese observer de- individual movement possible, be- scribed the situation during that period cause even though registration is as follows: still mandatory, being unregistered Almost all of the civil rights of an in- no longer affects a person’s liveli- dividual can be guaranteed only with hood that critically.3 the presence of ho khau. Other ben- After Doi Moi, existence without reg- efits and rights including rations for istration became more possible but re- food and almost all necessary con- mained challenging. The implications of sumer items, ranging from cooking not having permanent registration are oil to the “rights” to be on the waiting explored in later chapters of this study. list for purchasing a bicycle or gov- ernment house assignments, even Recent changes and the summer vacation, all were bound to and determined by his specific po- current legal ho khau regime sition under the administration of a specific employer within the state 9. The last decade has been a peri- sectors (in the countryside, people od of active evolution of the ho khau le- were also in the similar situation as gal framework. This can be seen in fact their work and benefits were tied to that 1220 legal documents mentioning the agricultural, fishing, or handicraft ho khau have been promulgated since cooperatives).2 2006, compared to 770 in the entire peri- od up to 2006.4 7. Transfer of one’s ho khau from one place to another was possible in 10. The 2006 Law on Residence principle but challenging in practice. made for a major shift of ho khau poli- Potential migrants were required to go cies. Before 2006, there were four differ- through a complex paperwork process ent categories of registration: KT1 status which included obtaining a moving cer- for permanent residents, KT2 for per- tificate from authorities at their place manent residents who live lived in their of departure. Such certificates could be same province of original registration obtained with proof of employment or but in a different district, KT3 for long- university enrollment in the destination, term temporary residents, and KT4 for but otherwise were difficult to obtain. short-term temporary residents. The Pre-Doi Moi, few people moved without first two categories (KT1 and KT2) en- the sanction of authorities, and those joyed full residential rights, including that did struggled to survive without lo- the right to purchase land-use rights and cal ho khau. the ability to access other social services CHAPTER 1 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M 5 at the place of residence. KT3 residents in the number of changes of perma- could buy land-use rights but faced re- nent registration under the new law. strictions on access to certain social ser- MPS, however, also criticized the law as vices, such as schooling. KT4 residents being too lax, and concerns were raised did not have the rights to purchase lands in the National Assembly that rapid ur- and also faced limited access to social banization as a consequence of the law services.5 was putting pressuring on these cities’ infrastructure and social services. These 11. The new Law on Residence concerns led to revisions to the law in made several important changes. The 2013.6 The revisions tightened the re- Law collapsed the four categories into quirements for permanent registration, two: temporary and permanent. The law most significantly by requiring two years also significantly reduced the conditions of continuous residency in a central city for obtaining permanent residency, par- rather than just one. The 2013 revision ticularly in central-administered cities. also recognized the autonomy of local In order to get a ho khau registration in authorities—particularly in the cities of these cities, previously citizens had been Ha Noi, Ho Chi Minh City, Can Tho, Da required to reside there continuously for Nang, and Hai Phong—to set their own three years, while the new regulation residence policies. only required one year of continuous residence. Other changes under the 2006 13. The 2012 Capital City Law sub- Law simplified the transfer of registra- stantially tightened the requirements tion status. Crucially, the requirement for permanent residence in Ha Noi. of obtaining a moving certificate from The Law instituted a requirement of the place of departure was removed. Re- previous presence in the city for three quirements to demonstrate employment years—as compared with two under or school enrollment in the destination the revised national guidelines. The law were also eliminated. also allowed the city’s People’s Commit- tee to set minimum requirements for the 12. The Ministry of Public Security size of dwellings needed for those apply- (MPS), which continued to administer ing for permanent residence. the system, reported a sharp increase BOX 1 Household and residence registration systems around the world Household and residential registration systems systems—including Vietnam’s—serve both have varied forms in different countries around functions. the world. It is important to distinguish be- A large number of countries have house- tween household (or family) registration sys- hold registration systems, which treat the tems and residence registration systems. Some family or household as a legal administrative 6 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M  CHAPTER 1 unit, but with no tie to residence. Many Euro- dents. To qualify for “in-state” tuition, most pean nations, for example, have such a system. U.S. states require students to have been phys- Examples include France’s livret de famille, ical residents of the state for at least one year Germany’s familenbuch, and Japan’s koseki. before enrolling. South Korea’s system of this type, known as Only a very small number of countries both hoju, was eliminated in 2008, largely due to have residential registration systems that are concerns that the designation of a household linked to social services provision and substan- head (usually male) under the system perpet- tially restrict change of registration. Vietnam uated bias in gender roles. The system was and China are the two remaining prominent replaced with an individual-based registra- examples. (See Box 5 in Chapter 6 for a de- tion system. In all of these cases, the system is scription of China’s hukou and recent reforms.) used to register births, deaths, and marriages In the case of both Vietnam’s ho khau and Chi- but is not linked to residence or the provision na’s hukou, the systems serve dual roles as reg- of social services. istration for both household membership and Separately, many countries have some form residence. of residence registration that is used to deter- The Soviet Union had a very restrictive mine access to government services, but with- residential registration system known as out major restrictions on changing residence. propiska which, like the older version ho Japan, for example, has a juminhyo system (in khau, was intended to prevent rural inhab- addition to the koseki family register). Un- itants from leaving villages and regulate mi- der juminhyo, citizens are required to report gration flows to the main cities, in particu- their current address to the local authorities, lar Moscow. Local propiska was a necessary who use the information as the basis for social precondition for obtaining job, pensions, services, including national health insurance housing, medical care and other social ser- membership and registration of children at the vices including schooling for children. In local school. The system is individual-based, 1991, during the waning days of the Soviet and notably, there are no restrictions on chang- Union, the Committee for Constitutional ing one’s registration. Control (predecessor of the Constitutional The United States does not have a residen- Court) declared propiska unconstitutional tial registration system, but proof of residen- and concluded that individuals should be cy is required to access some local services. free to move and chose their place of resi- What constitutes proof of residency and the dence, their only obligation being to inform relevant set of services varies across states and state officials of their choice. Nonetheless, localities. Typical proof of residency is a prop- the former Soviet republics inherited prop- erty title or housing lease. For example, to be iska, and elements of the system have per- able to send their children to a public primary sisted to varying degrees. Many of those and secondary school, families must establish countries have officially abolished propiska physical residence in the school district. In but have maintained some form of residen- most cases, service access is not linked to du- tial registration. As in Vietnam, in several ration of residence, but there is one exception. of those countries, concerns persist that in Most public higher education institutions are practice residential registration limits access partially funded by state (subnational) govern- to public services for migrants. ments and charge lower tuition to state resi- CHAPTER 1 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M 7 14. In Da Nang in 2011, city au- Previous data on ho khau thorities attempted to apply more restrictive regulations. The City Peo- ple’s Committee issued Resolution No 16. The impacts of the ho khau 23/2011 in 2011, which denied perma- system have been poorly understood nent registration to those renting their in large part due to data constraints. dwelling, as well the unemployed and The main sources of socioeconom- those with criminal records. This Res- ic data have not collected information olution was rejected by the Minister of on households that were not registered Justice, who ordered the city to amend where they actually reside. Researchers the resolution. In 2014, the city enacted a noted in 2008 that new set of milder restrictions, including The decision to include only offi- a requirement that households applying cially registered households reflects for permanent registration live in rental the precarious legal position of mi- housing with at least 22 square meters grants in Vietnam. Put simply, since per person, substantially more than re- the vast majority of short-term and quired in other cities. even long-term migrant residents are in breach of the household registra- 15. Overall, while the household tion rules, officials from the center registration system became less restric- down to the most remote commune tive in 2006, in particular easing the are loathe to implement a statistical path for temporary registration, chang- sampling method that requires them es in the requirements for permanent to acknowledge the existence of and registration have not tread a straight actively record illegal migrants.7 path. The substantial loosening under the 2006 law was followed by a tighten- 17. In recent years, the country’s ing of policies, particularly in large cit- main socioeconomic household sur- ies concerned about the impact of large vey has attempted to collect data on inflows of migrants on public services. It households regardless of registration is also important to recognize that actual status. The Vietnam Household Living administrative practice may vary from Standards Survey (VHLSS) has included what is stipulated in the legal regime. To questions on where respondents are reg- take one example, the 2006 Law on Res- istered permanently since 2004. Standard idence collapsed the four ho khau cate- practice has been to use local ho khau gories (KT1, KT2, KT3, and KT4) into lists as the basis for the survey sampling two—permanent and temporary—but frame, which effectively excludes those in practice the distinction between KT3 without local registration. Starting in (long-term temporary) and KT4 (short- 2010, the VHLSS sampling frame began term temporary) still exists. The discus- in principle to include households with- sion in subsequent chapters based on the out regard to registration status. Survey household survey and qualitative work enumerators are instructed to supple- considers actual ho khau practice. ment the local ho khau lists by conduct- ing a new listing of households in the commune. However, the survey contin- ues to explicitly exclude people who have 8 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M  CHAPTER 1 not been living in the current location for temporary registration in their current at least six months, who are likely to not location would respond to this question. have permanent registration. Addition- The question in most cases would proba- ally, it is uncertain to how effectively the bly be interpreted as referring to perma- new listing procedure is at identifying nent registration. However, temporary the population without permanent sta- registration is a form of ho khau, too. tus. Among the population surveyed by Analysis of the UPS surveys has typically the VHLSS in 2010 and 2012, 3.6 percent categorized people into “registered” and nationally reported that they were regis- “unregistered” by whether they report tered in a different commune from where having ho khau in the commune where they lived. Of these, half reported that are they living. The “registered” group is they were registered in a different prov- likely to include all those with permanent ince from where they lived.8 This popu- registration plus some of those with tem- lation identified in the VHLSS is highly porary registration. The “unregistered” concentrated in Ho Chi Minh City and group probably includes both those Ha Noi and three provinces near Ho Chi with no registration status in their cur- Minh City: Binh Duong, Dong Nai, and rent location (but permanent registra- Ba Ria-Vung Tau. tion elsewhere) and some of those with temporary registration in their current 18. Other sources of data on the location. This ambiguity complicates any population without permanent regis- interpretation of the information on the tration status are the 2009 and 2012 Ur- registered and unregistered populations ban Poverty Surveys (UPS), conducted in the VHLSS and UPS. in Ha Noi and Ho Chi Minh City. Both made attempts to include households New data: the Household without permanent status. By anecdotal accounts from researchers involved in registration survey and the the 2009 survey, it was successful in iden- Ho Khau qualitative study tifying and interviewing a representative sample of migrants living in family hous- 20. The lack of reliability of earli- ing but not in accessing migrants living er data on the size and characteristics in collective housing, e.g. factory dormi- of the population without permanent tories. The 2012 UPS reported far fewer registration motivated the collection numbers of individuals without perma- of new data for this study in the form nent registration than the 2009 UPS, and of the 2015 Household Registration anecdotal accounts suggest that it was Survey. The survey was conducted in less effective than the 2009 survey in lo- April-July 2015 by Mekong Develop- cating those without permanent registra- ment Research Institute (MDRI). The tion. survey questionnaire was developed by the World Bank with inputs from the 19. While the precise wording of MDRI and the Institute of Sociology. questions vary across years, both the The survey was implemented and is rep- VHLSS and UPS surveys ask variations resentative of the population in 5 prov- of “Where is this person’s ho khau?” inces—Ho Chi Minh City, Ha Noi, Da It is not fully clear how someone with Nang, Binh Duong and Dak Nong—and CHAPTER 1 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M 9 had a total sample size of 5000. Those 22. The interview and focus group five provinces were selected because they samples included the following: are among the provinces with the high- • Temporary residents aged 18 years or est rates of in-migration. Ho Chi Minh older who have lived in the selected City, Ha Noi, and Da Nang are three cities and provinces for at least one large cities, located in the north, south, year, including families with small and center respectively. Binh Duong is and school-age children. an industrial province that neighbors Ho • Local people including permanent Chi Minh City and has a large migrant residents and landlords. population. Dak Nong is a largely rural • Administrators at all levels. province in the Central Highlands with • The area police at ward and district a substantial number of migrants. The levels. sampling design was structured so as to • Representatives of service providers ensure a substantial number of respon- including school principals, heads of dents without permanent registration. medical stations, entrepreneurs, and Sample weights were constructed so that power supply managers. calculations using the weights (including all calculations in this report) are rep- resentative of the population in the five surveyed provinces. Details of the sam- pling design and weight calculations can be found in Annex 1. 21. The survey was complement- ed by the Ho Khau Qualitative Study (HKQS) implemented by the Vietnam Institute of Sociology (IOS), which is part of the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences. The IOS team employ qualita- tive techniques including 69 in-depth in- terviews and 25 focus group discussions in three cities (Ha Noi, Ho Chi Minh City and Da Nang) and one mainly ru- ral province (Dak Nong). Two districts were selected in each city/province—one in a central urban area and the other in a peri-urban area, and one ward was se- lected within each district. 10 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M  CHAPTER 2 2 CHAPTERS Basic characteristics of the population by registration status Estimates from the new survey indicate that there are more than 5.6 million people without permanent registration in their place of residence, far more than implied by previous surveys. Forty percent of those without permanent ho khau moved to their current province before 2010. Temporary registrant households have relatively few children and larger numbers of people of working age. Seventy percent of temporary registrant workers are in the private sector (twice the rate among permanent regis- trants), and 30% work for foreign firms. In the five provinces surveyed, three-fourths of all foreign firm employees have temporary registration. The wage premium asso- ciated with permanent registration in 2009 had disappeared by 2015, and average wages, expenditures, and incomes of temporary registrants are now similar to those of permanent registrants. However, temporary registrants still face barriers to public sector employment. 23. Earlier surveys that collected temporary) status was required for stays data on ho khau status failed to differ- of more than 6 months. Although the entiate by type of registration status. 2006 Law eliminated the distinction, This resulted in ambiguity in how those preliminary qualitative work conduct- with temporary registration status may ed for this study suggested that the KT respond. The HRS included the follow- terms were still commonly used by the ing question for each household mem- general population and by authorities, so ber: “Do you know what type of house- they were included in the survey ques- hold registration [NAME] has at this tionnaire. address?” where the allowed responses were “Permanent (KT1/KT2)”, “Long- 24. No respondents reported hav- term temporary (KT3)”, “Short-term ing no registration status at their cur- temporary (KT4)”, “None”, and “Don’t rent location. All of the individuals know.” The KT codes refer to the ho khau interviewed for the Household Registra- categories that existed before the 2006 tion Survey reported having either per- Law on Residence was put into effect. manent or temporary registration status Under the old law, KT4 (short-term tem- at their place of residence. It is possible porary) status was applicable for stays of that some people without any registra- up to 6 months, while KT3 (long-term tion status at all reported themselves to CHAPTER 2 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M 11 have temporary registration. It is also is 4.6-6.7 million. Figure 1 shows the es- possible that those without any regis- timated size of the permanent registra- tration status were missed by the survey tion population by city/province in the listing. However, the Ho Khau Qualita- HRS, as a share of the overall population tive Study (HKQS) found that acquiring and in absolute level. The largest per- the process for obtaining temporary res- centage without permanent registration idence status is no longer difficult, and is in Binh Duong, where 72%—a total of consequently the population of people 1.4 million people—do not have perma- with no registration status at all is thus nent registration. Large fractions in Ho very small. Chi Minh City (36%) and Ha Noi (18%) also lack permanent registration. The 25. In total, the estimated popula- largest absolute number without perma- tion without permanent registration nent registration is in Ho Chi Minh City, in the five areas covered by the HRS is where the total population with perma- 5.6 million. It is important to recognize nent status is estimated to be 2.9 million. that this is an estimate derived from a In Da Nang and Dak Nong, much small- sample survey, which is subject to both er percentages of the population and sampling and non-sampling error. The smaller absolute numbers of people are range of estimates accounting for sam- without permanent status. pling error (the 95% confidence interval) 26. In all areas, the majority of those with only temporary registration FIGURE 1 Many urban migrants lack reported that they had long-term tem- permanent registration status in major porary registration status. Ho Chi Minh urban areas, 2015: Percent of population City has the largest percentage who are lacking permanent registration in province short-term: 14 percent of the population of residence (39 percent of those with temporary reg- istration). Remarkably, 60 percent of the entire population of Binh Duong have 72% long-term temporary status. 80 (1.4 million people) 27. The HRS captured a substan- Percent of city or province population 70 Short-term temporary registration tial population of people without per- 60 Long-term manent registration who have been temporary registration 50 36% underrepresented in previous surveys, (2.9 million particularly the VHLSS. As shown in people) 40 Table 2, for all surveyed areas, the per- 30 18% centages of the population without per- (1.3 million people) 12% manent registration status are higher in (120,000 20 people) 7% (40,000 the HRS than estimated from previous 10 people) surveys. The VHLSS in particular shows much lower percentages of the popula- 0 Binh Duong Ho Chi Minh City Ha Noi Da Nang Dak Nong tion without permanent registration. For example, according to the VHLSS just 1% of Ha Noi’s population lacks permanent Source: Analysis of 2015 HRS 12 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M  CHAPTER 2 status, as compared to 18% in the HRS. 28. Many people without perma- As discussed in Chapter 1, this is likely nent registration have been living in due to the fact that the VHLSS explicit- their current province or city for at ly excludes individuals who have been least five years. Table 3 (on next page) living in their current location for less shows the distribution of when those than six months, and it also may reflect with temporary registration moved to imperfect coverage by the VHLSS of the province or city where they currently households with permanent status. The reside. A small number (13%) are very 2009 and 2012 Urban Poverty Survey in recent migrants who arrived in 2015 Ho Chi Minh City and Ha Noi showed during the few months before the survey, larger non-permanent populations than and a majority (57%) arrived since 2010. the VHLSS but much lower populations But there are large numbers who arrived that the HRS. Because capturing the en- before 2010 and even some who have tire population regardless of registration been living in their current province status was the chief objective of the sur- since before 2000. In Ho Chi Minh City, vey, which was carried out by a very ex- half of the temporary registrant popula- perienced survey firm with a carefully tion arrived before 2010. designed sampling approach, it is likely that the HRS estimates are at least equal in quality to those from previous surveys. TABLE 2 Estimated percentage of population by province without permanent registration Binh Duong HCM City Ha Noi Da Nang Dak Nong % of population without permanent registration Vietnam Household Living Standards Survey (2014) 16% 9% 1% 3% 3% Urban Poverty Survey (2009) 21% 11% Urban Poverty Survey (2012) 16% 5% Household Registration Survey (2015) 72% 36% 18% 12% 7% Long-term temporary 60% 22% 13% 11% 6% Short-term temporary 12% 14% 4% 1% 1% Population counts Household Registration Survey (2015) Total population (millions) 1.87 7.98 7.10 1.01 0.57 Population w/o permanent registration (millions) 1.35 2.88 1.26 0.12 0.04 95% CI of population w/o permanent registration 1.23-1.46 2.34-3.41 0.92-1.6 0.09-0.16 0.03-0.04 Sources: Analysis of 2015 HRS and 2014 VHLSS and Urban Poverty Survey reports for 2009 and 2012 Note: Total population estimates are taken from the 2014 GSO Statistical Yearbook. The population with temporary status population totals were calculated by multiplying the total population estimates by the temporary registrant share estimate from the HRS. 95% CI refers to the 95% confidence interval CHAPTER 2 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M 13 TABLE 3 Year of arrival to current province for those without permanent registration Year moved to province All Binh Duong HCM City Ha Noi Da Nang Dak Nong All temporary Before 2000 6% 2% 9% 5% 7% 2% 2000-2004 11% 8% 15% 7% 9% 3% 2005-2009 23% 25% 27% 16% 20% 14% 2010-2014 46% 52% 41% 50% 55% 65% 2015 13% 13% 9% 23% 9% 16% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% Long term temporary Before 2000 7% 2% 11% 6% 8% 2% 2000-2004 12% 8% 16% 9% 10% 4% 2005-2009 25% 27% 30% 17% 21% 16% 2010-2014 47% 54% 39% 51% 53% 70% 2015 9% 9% 4% 18% 7% 8% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% Short term temporary Before 2000 3% 0% 5% 0% 0% 0% 2000-2004 10% 6% 14% 1% 0% 0% 2005-2009 19% 14% 22% 12% 9% 3% 2010-2014 44% 42% 44% 47% 66% 33% 2015 23% 37% 15% 39% 25% 63% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% Sources: Analysis of 2015 Household Registration Survey 14 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M  CHAPTER 2 29. Temporary registrants are rary registrants were substantially more more likely to have lived only part of likely to have lived only part-time at their the year at their current residence. Sur- current residence, especially those with vey respondents were asked how much short-term registration and particularly of the last year they lived at their current in Ha Noi. This reflects the facts that al- residence (Table 4). Among permanent though many temporary registrants are residents, the average period at the cur- long-term residents, a substantial num- rent residence was 11.7 months, and 94% ber also are cyclical migrants, who spent had spent the entire year there. Tempo- part of the year in their hometowns. TABLE 4 Time spent at current residence in last 12 months, by registration status All Binh Duong HCM City Ha Noi Da Nang Dak Nong Individuals with permanent registration Average number of months at current residence 11.7 11.7 11.8 11.7 11.6 11.5 % living all 12 months at current residence 94% 93% 95% 95% 92% 88% Individuals with any temporary registration Average number of months at current residence 10.4 10.5 10.7 9.8 10.0 10.0 % living all 12 months at current residence 71% 71% 78% 58% 65% 64% Individuals with short-term temporary registration Average number of months at current residence 9.3 8.7 9.9 7.9 7.0 6.0 % living all 12 months at current residence 60% 55% 68% 38% 32% 33% Individuals with long-term temporary registration Average number of months at current residence 10.9 10.8 11.3 10.4 10.4 10.7 % living all 12 months at current residence 76% 74% 85% 64% 69% 70% Sources: Source: Analysis of 2015 Household Registration Survey CHAPTER 2 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M 15 30. The population without per- hold composition by permanent as com- manent registration has demograph- pared to temporary status. There is also ics characteristics that are typical of no substantial difference in demographic migrant populations. Table 5 shows a characteristics between short-term and basic comparison of demographic char- long-term temporary registrants. acteristics by registration status of the household. Temporary registrant house- 31. The most notable difference be- holds have smaller household size than tween permanent and temporary regis- their permanent counterparts. The aver- trants is in household structure. More age size of temporary registrant house- temporary registrant households con- holds is 2.7, much lower than that of per- sist of just one individual. Children are manent residence households of 4.1. On present in 61% of permanent registrant average, heads of households with tem- households. The shares with children are porary status are younger (age 34) than much lower but still substantial among heads of households with permanent both long-term temporary households status (47). Nearly all (91%) of heads (39%) and short-term temporary house- with permanent registration are married, holds (24%). Consequently, concerns versus 75% of heads of households with about public service access for children temporary status. There is little gender raised in the next chapter do have impli- difference in household heads or house- cations for large numbers of households. TABLE 5 Household demographic characteristics Registration status of household head Permanent Temporary All temporary Long-term Short-term temporary temporary Household size (mean) 4.1 2.7 2.7 2.5 Household composition % with only 1 adult 3% 18% 16% 20% % with 2 or more adults w/o children 35% 48% 44% 56% % with 1 adult with children 1% 1% 1% 0% % with 2 or more adults w/ children 60% 33% 38% 24% % children (mean) 22% 13% 15% 8% % over 60 (mean) 7% 1% 1% 2% Household head demographics Head's age (mean) 47 34 35 33 Head is male (%) 62% 61% 61% 60% Head is ethnic minority (%) 3% 6% 6% 6% Head is married (%) 91% 75% 78% 68% Sources: Analysis of 2015 Household Registration Survey 16 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M  CHAPTER 2 32. Education levels of both perma- temporary registrant population. Ex- nent and temporary registrant adults tremely few ethnic minorities are perma- are varied. Overall, education levels of nent registrants—just 1.8% of the overall permanent registrants are higher (Table permanent registrant population, and a 6). However, there are substantial num- smaller share in the major urban areas. bers of both long-term temporary and (Nationally, ethnic minorities constitute short-term temporary registrants with approximately 14 percent of the popula- high levels of education. Among tem- tion.) They are only a substantial share porary registrants, 22% have completed of permanent registrants in the mostly post-secondary education, compared rural province of Dak Nong. Ethnic mi- to 35% of permanent registrants. Tem- norities are, however, a non-negligible porary registrants are not by any means share of temporary registrants, partic- universally low-skilled. ularly in Binh Duong, where they are 7.6% of long-term temporary registrants 33. There are no gender differenc- and 11.3% of short-term temporary reg- es by registrations status, but tempo- istrants. The low number of permanent rary registrants are much more likely registrant ethnic minorities is unsurpris- to be ethnic minorities. Table 7 shows ing in light of their low historical levels a breakdown of basic demographic char- of migration. The different pattern for acteristics for individuals overall and temporary registrants suggests that mi- separately by province. Women make up gration of ethnic minorities may be ac- roughly half of both the permanent and celerating. TABLE 6 Education attainment of adults (Age 25+) by registration status Registration status of household head Permanent Temporary All temporary Long-term Short-term temporary temporary No degree 8% 14% 14% 14% Primary 13% 23% 23% 25% Lower secondary 23% 25% 25% 24% Upper secondary 20% 16% 16% 17% Post-secondary 35% 22% 22% 19% 100% 100% 100% 100% Sources: Analysis of 2015 Household Registration Survey CHAPTER 2 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M 17 TABLE 7 Individual demographic characteristics by registration status and province Registration status Permanent Temporary All temporary Long-term Short-term temporary temporary All 5 provinces % ethnic minority 1.8% 5.2% 5.3% 5.1% % female 51% 52% 52% 52% Age (mean) 32 27 27 28 Binh Duong % ethnic minority 1.1% 8.2% 7.6% 11.3% % female 51% 52% 53% 47% Age (mean) 30 27 27 26 Ho Chi Minh City % ethnic minority 0.8% 3.8% 4.1% 3.4% % female 52% 53% 53% 53% Age (mean) 32 28 28 29 Ha Noi % ethnic minority 0.3% 5.0% 4.6% 6.2% % female 51% 49% 49% 50% Age (mean) 32 25 25 26 Da Nang % ethnic minority 0.1% 0.8% 0.2% 6.3% % female 51% 55% 54% 66% Age (mean) 31 25 26 22 Dak Nong % ethnic minority 30.5% 25.2% 25.5% 23.8% % female 48% 44% 43% 47% Age (mean) 26 27 26 29 Sources: Analysis of 2015 Household Registration Survey 18 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M  CHAPTER 2 Employment and wages 36. The 2015 survey shows large dif- ferences in employment by registration status, starting with a difference in em- 34. Previous literature has suggest- ployment rates. Table 8 shows employ- ed that those without permanent ho ment rates, sector, and type of employer khau face disadvantages in the labor by registration. These differences reflect market. A study of temporary migrants both the nature of people who have to Ha Noi and Ho Chi Minh City in 2008 temporary status and the restrictions concluded that they were much more they face due to their status. Temporary likely to have low quality, poorly paid registrants are much more likely to be jobs in precarious working conditions. employed than permanent registrants. The study found that 94% of temporary Among those age 15 and older, 68% of migrants were working in the informal permanent registrants and 81% of tem- sector, only 5% of them had written labor porary registrants are employed. This dif- contracts, and their wages were low. Just ference owes to the fact that many tem- 9% had accident insurance and less than porary registrants are migrants who have 5% have either health, social or other moved to their current location expressly types of insurance. As part of that study, to work, that temporary registrants are a manager at an industrial park was in- more likely to be of prime working age, terviewed who said and that younger temporary registrants We were instructed by the provincial are less likely to be in school than their government to recruit only workers permanent registrant counterparts. who are local people [having perma- nent resident status]. This is because 37. Temporary registrants are far the local people should be given pri- more likely to work in manufactur- ority in terms of employment so that ing. A majority of working temporary the local economy and well-being can registrants (55%) have manufacturing be promoted.9 jobs, compared to just 17% of perma- nent registrant workers. This remarkably 35. A separate 2009 study found high figure reflects the fact that recent some differences in employment by reg- migrants, who lack permanent status, istration status. Analysis using the 2009 largely form the workforce for the fac- Urban Poverty Survey showed that as tories of Vietnam’s industrial areas. Per- compared to those with permanent reg- manent status workers, in contrast, are istration, those without it are less likely to more prevalent in jobs in various sectors work for the state (5% vs. 23%) and have related to trade and services. Notably, an indefinite work contract (8% vs. 27%). temporary registrant workers are only At the same time, they were more likely slightly more likely to be in construction to be working for a wage or salary, to be than permanent registrant workers (6% working in industry, and to be working in of permanent registrants vs. 8% of tem- a foreign enterprise. The study found that porary registrants), although construc- those without permanent registration tion workers are sometimes perceived to had only slightly lower monthly wages be largely migrants.11 than those with permanent registration (VND 2.0 million vs. VND 2.2 million.)10 CHAPTER 2 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M 19 TABLE 8 Employment by registration status Registration status Permanent Temporary Employment rate All temporary Long-term Short-term temporary temporary Any employment (15+ year old) 68% 81% 83% 85% Sector of those working Wholesale, retail, and repair of vehicles 20% 12% 14% 9% Processing and manufacturing industries 17% 55% 53% 59% Services of accommodation, food and beverages 12% 5% 5% 6% Agriculture, forestry and aquaculture 7% 2% 2% 1% Construction 6% 8% 7% 9% Activities of the communist party and state organizations 6% 1% 1% 1% Transport, warehouse 6% 3% 3% 3% Education and training 5% 2% 2% 3% Other services 5% 3% 3% 5% Administration and supporting services 3% 1% 1% 1% Finance, banking, and insurance 3% 1% 1% 1% Healthcare and social assistance 2% 0% 1% 0% Information and communication 2% 1% 1% 1% Arts, recreation and entertainment 2% 1% 1% 1% Professionalism, science and technology 1% 1% 1% 1% Household employment 1% 1% 1% 0% Production and distribution of electricity, etc. 1% 0% 1% 0% Business in real estates 1% 0% 0% 0% Water supply; management and treatment 1% 0% 0% 0% Mining and quarrying 0% 0% 0% 0% Activities of international organizations 0% 0% 0% 0% 100% 100% 100% 100% Employer of those working Domestic private sector 30% 40% 38% 44% Foreign private sector 6% 30% 30% 29% Public sector 18% 6% 6% 7% Work for other households/Individuals 16% 11% 11% 9% Self-employment, non-agriculture 24% 13% 14% 9% Self-employment, agriculture 6% 1% 1% 0% Collective 1% 0% 0% 1% 100% 100% 100% 100% Sources: Analysis of 2015 Household Registration Survey 20 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M  CHAPTER 2 38. Likewise, temporary registrants large numbers of temporary registrants overwhelmingly work in the private employed in the domestic private and sector, and a large share work for for- foreign private sector—are compatible eign firms. Forty percent work for do- with the qualitative reports. mestic private sector firms and 30% work for foreign firms. In comparison, 30% of 40. Access to public employment permanent registrant workers work for for those without permanent regis- domestic firms and just 6% work for for- tration appears to have become more eign firms. Those with permanent reg- restrictive over time. Ha Noi, Ho Chi istration are substantially more likely to Minh City, and Da Nang have long had a work in agriculture, household business- two-tier recruitment policy: permanent es, and the public sector. The paucity of registration is required for normal civil temporary registrants in the public sec- servant jobs but waived for special cases. tor likely reflects requirements of perma- Da Nang used the two-tier recruitment nent ho khau for some public sector jobs. system until 2014. For talent recruitment, Da Nang did not require permanent res- 39. The evidence suggests that peo- ident household registration. Under its ple without permanent registration special program for attracting skilled face discrimination in hiring for pub- workers, graduates from colleges and lic jobs but not for private sector jobs. universities with very high scores could HKQS interviewees reported that gov- be recruited to work in the Da Nang gov- ernment officials give priority to those ernment regardless of their resident sta- with permanent status in recruitment for tus. However, in 2014 Da Nang halted its public jobs. Very few participants in the talent-attraction program and replaced it HKQS, however, mentioned household with a new program that funds promis- registration status as a pre-condition for ing local students to study abroad with private sector employment. This finding a condition that those students must re- stands in contrast to the qualitative re- turn and work for the city after gradua- port from the 2008 study, which suggests tion. Ha Noi has also recently established that ho khau restrictions for private em- restrictive conditions for hiring those ployment have eased. The employment without permanent registration (Box 2). patterns observed in the HRS—with BOX 2 Recruitment for public administration jobs in the capital city Ha Noi has made permanent resident house- Graduated from domestic universities with the hold registration in Ha Noi a mandatory con- highest rank, graduated with excellent or good dition for most of its civil servant jobs. For rank from universities abroad, hold a doctorate people having no permanent resident house- issued before 35 years of age, or hold a master’s hold registration in Ha Noi who want to apply, degree or diploma issued by official public uni- they must meet one of the following criteria: versities before 30 years of age. CHAPTER 2 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M 21 41. In contrast to 2009, in 2015 dif- regressions in 2009 and in 2015. In 2009, ferences in hourly wages by registration controlling for basic characteristics of status are minimal and are explained workers, those without permanent regis- by differences in education attainment. tration status earned on average 9% less Figure 2 shows plots of the distribution than permanent registrants. A similar of hourly wages by registration status, regression in 2015 shows no statistically using data from the 2009 UPS and the significant difference at all by registra- 2015 HRS. In both years, the distribution tion status. of wages for temporary registrants was narrower than that for the population as 43. Taken as a whole, these results a whole. The data in 2009 show that the suggest that discrimination against distribution of wages for those with tem- workers in the private sector by regis- porary registration was to the left of that tration status is now uncommon. There for those with permanent registration, re- is no longer any evidence that those with- flecting the lower average wages of tem- out permanent status are paid less than porary registrants. In 2015, the distribu- comparable workers. And large num- tion of wages for temporary registrants bers of workers without permanent reg- was to the right of that for permanent istration are employed by private firms. registrants, indicating that temporary However, the low rate of public sector registrants have higher wages on average. employment for those with temporary registration suggest that registration re- 42. There are no differences in wag- quirements for public sector jobs are still es by registration status when compar- binding in some cases. ing similar workers. Table 9 shows wage FIGURE 2 Distribution of wages (in thousands of VND per hour) by registration status 2009 2015 (HCMC & Ha Noi) (HCMC, Ha Noi, Da Nang, Binh Duong, Dak Nong) .0 6 .05 .04 .0 4 .03 Density Density .02 .0 2 .01 0 0 20 40 60 80 100 20 40 60 80 100 Permanent Hourly Wage Permanent Hourly Wage Temporary Temporary Sources: Analysis of 2015 HRS and 2009 Urban Poverty Survey Notes: The x-axis shows hourly wages on a log scale. The “permanent” category for 2009 is those reporting ho khau in their place of residence, and the “tempo- rary” category is the remainder. 22 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M  CHAPTER 2 TABLE 9 Wage regressions including registration status, 2009 and 2015 Independent Variable: log (hourly wage) 2009 2015 -0.0870** 0.0290 Temporary registration status (0.03) (0.0257) 0.0512*** 0.0380*** Age (0.01) (0.0054) -0.000554*** -0.0004*** Age squared (0.00) (0.0001) 0.00657 0.0797*** Completed primary degree (0.08) (0.0260) 0.0452 0.1354*** Completed lower-secondary degree (0.05) (0.0272) 0.209*** 0.1788*** Completed upper-secondary degree (0.04) (0.0291) 0.592*** 0.4231*** Completed college (0.04) (0.0378) -0.183*** -0.1194*** Female (0.03) (0.0186) 0.0533 0.0737** State sector (0.03) (0.0326) 0.169*** 0.1357*** Foreign sector (0.04) (0.0274) 0.0265 0.0582 Industry (0.12) (0.1078) 0.0639 -0.0359 Service (0.12) (0.1070) 0.106** 0.0261 Urban (0.04) (0.0244) 0.0965** 0.1163*** Ho Chi Minh City (0.03) (0.0316) -0.0638* Da Nang (0.0350) 0.1377*** Dak Nong (0.0527) 0.0400 Binh Duong (0.0354) 1.072*** 2.0577*** Constant (0.26) (0.1393) Observations 3753 5,807 R-squared 0.407 0.126 Sources: Analysis of 2009 Urban Poverty Survey and 2015 Household Registration Survey Robust standard errors in parentheses, *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1, Omitted categories: no degree, agriculture sector, private employer, and Ha Noi CHAPTER 2 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M 23 44. Women receive lower wages 46. Wage income is by far the most than men, and these differences are important source of income for tem- similar regardless of registration sta- porary registrant households. Wages tus. The wage regression analysis shows account on average for 78% of income that controlling for other characteris- for household with temporary status. For tics, women earn on average 12% less permanent registrant households, wages than similar men. This estimate closely account for 51%. Permanent registrant matches estimates from similar analy- households receive larger amounts in sis using the 2014 Labor Force Survey.13 aid/allowances from government pro- This pattern is similar regardless of reg- grams and household businesses. istration status; women with temporary registration are not especially disad- 47. Expenditure patterns for tem- vantaged. porary registrants are similar to those of permanent registrants, with a few exceptions. Because they have fewer Income and expenditure children, temporary registrant house- holds spend less on education. They also spend more on meals outside the home, 45. Levels of income and expen- which is explained by the larger number diture per capita are similar across of working adults. groups by registration status of house- hold heads, but the composition dif- 48. The most remarkable difference fers. Table 10 shows income and expen- in expenditure patterns is that tem- ditures by registration group. Overall porary registrant households spend expenditures per capita are nearly iden- substantial amounts on remittances. tical across groups. By this basic measure Among permanent registrant house- of welfare, there is no difference between holds, remittances are negligible. Among permanent and temporary households. temporary registrant households, remit- On a per capita basis, income is higher tances average 236,000 VND per capita among households with temporary sta- per month—approximately 8% of house- tus. This reflects the larger share of peo- hold income—and are higher among ple of working age in temporary status those with short-term temporary status. households. A comparison of income Due to their erratic timing, remittances and expenditures implies that savings are often underreported in household rates are on average higher among tem- surveys, so this figure is likely to repre- porary households. Calculating savings sent a lower bound to true remittance as the difference between income and ex- amounts. More than half (51%) of all penditure, in both absolute terms and as temporary registrant households report a percentage of income, temporary regis- having sent some remittances. trant households save more than perma- nent registrant households. 24 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M  CHAPTER 2 TABLE 10 Household income and expenditure by head registration status Registration status of household head Permanent Temporary Employment rate All temporary Long-term Short-term temporary temporary Household income per capita (i) 3,450 3,753 3,645 4,002 Household expenditure per capita (ii) 2,934 2,951 2,952 2,950 Implied net savings per capita (i)-(ii) 516 802 693 1,052 Implied net savings rate 15% 21% 19% 26% Household income per capita by source Wage from employment 1,744 2,943 2,763 3,357 Aid/Allowances 263 55 42 85 Non-agricultural business 859 518 612 302 Agricultural business 67 26 31 14 Other 517 211 197 243 Total hh income per capita 3,450 3,753 3,645 4,002 Household expenditure pc by type Daily meals inside home 963 930 939 910 Daily meals outside home 328 397 378 441 Water 34 39 40 38 Electricity 180 99 104 86 Gas 39 37 37 38 Communication 135 132 131 135 Health care 155 119 120 116 Education 259 166 170 156 Transportation 158 164 163 164 Holiday travel 55 24 27 16 Remittances 4 236 212 292 Other 624 608 629 560 Total expenditure per capita 2,934 2,951 2,952 2,950 % of households sending remittances 1% 51% 49% 55% Sources: Analysis of 2015 Household Registration Survey Note: All figures are thousands of VND per month. CHAPTER 3 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M 25 3 CHAPTERS Ho khau and services access Temporary registrants continue to face limited access to some public services, al- though the gaps in service access are less severe than those suggested by earlier stud- ies. Children with temporary registration are less likely to be enrolled in school at the lower and upper secondary levels, even after controlling for individual and household characteristics. At lower levels, overall enrollment rates are similar, but temporary reg- istrants are much more likely to be enrolled in more expensive private schools, partic- ularly for preschool, due to prioritization of permanent registrants. Despite a national policy of free health insurance for children under age 6, one-quarter of temporary reg- istrant children in that age group lack health insurance, and qualitative evidence in- dicates that this is due in part to their registration status. Some temporary registrants also face obstacles in designating a local facility as their health care location, which means that they pay higher fees for health care. Finally, qualitative evidence suggests that policies on whether temporary registrants can qualify for social assistance are in- consistent. Temporary registrants are slightly less likely than comparable permanent registrants to appear on the “poor list”, but overall rates of appearing on the poor list and receiving most forms of social assistance are low (regardless of registration sta- tus) in areas where temporary registrants live. Temporary registrants also are unable to conduct basic procedures like registering a motorcycle without returning to their place of origin. Half of temporary registrants voice an intention to stay and obtain per- manent status. Remaining gaps in social service access could be addressed through clearer articulation and consistent implementation of policies of universal access. 26 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M  CHAPTER 3 School enrollment garten. I will send them back to my hometown for schooling as I am not sure that I can apply for my children to 49. Earlier studies found that chil- be admitted to schools in this city.” dren without permanent residence face Temporary registrant, man, in Vinh difficulty in attending public school. Tuy, Ha Noi According to older qualitative work, high costs of schooling prompted many 51. In the HQKS, some school offi- migrant children to drop out of school or cials express discriminatory attitudes start working at an early age to support towards temporary residents. During the family.14 In a group of unregistered an interview, a kindergarten principal migrants in a 2008 survey, 43 percent said migrant children were not good for of children were out of school, and lack the school because their families may of ho khau was cited as the main reason change their residence often, causing in- for not attending for 84 percent of those stability in class sizes. According to the out of school.15 Data from the 2009 Ur- principal, kindergartens do not want to ban Poverty Survey in Ha Noi and Ho accept temporary registrant children for Chi Minh City also indicate that unreg- this reason. istered migrant children were less likely to be enrolled at all and more likely to be 52. Qualitative interviews for the enrolled in private school.16 HQKS also found that uniquely in Ho Chi Minh City, local education officials 50. In interviews for the HKQS, make efforts to ensure that children are both parents and local officials de- enrolled regardless of registration sta- scribed reasons that temporary reg- tus. In the ward surveyed by the HKQS, a istrant children may be less likely to local steering committee has been estab- attend school. Many schools give first lished that is responsible for promoting priority to students with permanent reg- universal attendance. The committee as- istration. Given that many urban schools sembles a list of all students of school-age face high levels of demand, space is often which is submitted to the district-level not available for temporary registrants. department of education. The district of- Parents of children with temporary reg- fice then mails a school admission letter istration reported that it was common to every student on the list. The commit- for them to have to pay additional fees tee explicitly includes children with tem- to have their students admitted to urban porary registration on that list. public schools. Parents with temporary registration said that given the barriers to 53. Data from the 2015 HRS survey public school attendance, many left their do show that children without perma- children in their places of origin to attend nent registration are less likely to be school, or send them to private school. enrolled, particularly at the secondary “Even at the kindergarten level, I have level. Differences are apparent in the en- to send my children to private schools rollment pyramid, which shows enroll- because it is impossible to be accept- ment rates side-by-side for permanent ed by public schools. When they were and temporary registrants by age and small, I sent them to a private kinder- level (Figure 3). Detailed net enrollment CHAPTER 3 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M 27 rates are show in Table 11. Preschool 55. Children with short-term tem- enrollment rates do not differ by regis- porary registration at all levels are less tration status. Children of primary and likely to be in school than permanent lower secondary ages (6-14) are almost and long-term temporary registrants. universally in school. Among children The gaps are largest at the lower and with temporary registration, school en- upper secondary levels. Net enrollment rollment rates are slightly lower in pri- rates for short-term temporary regis- mary school (95% vs 98%) and substan- trants are 74% for lower secondary and tially lower at lower secondary age (88% 8% for upper secondary. vs 99%). There is a sharp permanent vs. temporary divide at the upper secondary 56. Children with temporary sta- level, where the large majority of perma- tus are also more likely to be enrolled nent registrants and only a small minori- in private school, particularly in pre- ty of temporary registrants are in school school. At the preschool level, 45% of (89% vs. 30%). permanent registrant children are in public school, and 29% are in private 54. The gap in lower secondary en- school. These figures are reversed for rollment for temporary vs. permanent temporary registrant children: 21% in registrants is larger for girls. The reason public school and 52% in private school. for this gender difference is uncertain Temporary registrant children are also but may indicate that temporary regis- more likely to attend private school at the trant parents are willing to make greater primary and lower secondary level. efforts to overcome ho khau barriers for male children. FIGURE 3 School attendance rates by age for permanent vs. temporary registrants Permanent Temporary 17 16 15 14 13 Upper secondary 12 11 Lower secondary 10 Age 9 Primary 8 7 Preschool 6 5 4 3 100% 80% 60% 40% 20% 0 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% Percentage of children attending school Sources: Analysis of 2015 Household Registration Survey 28 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M  CHAPTER 3 57. Statistical analysis controlling as compared to those with permanent for other factors suggests that the en- residence, children of lower secondary rollment gap by ho khau status may be age (11-14) with short-term temporary in part due to discrimination against registration are 10% less likely to be in migrants. The enrollment may be par- school, and those with long-term tem- tially driven by factors not directly re- porary registration are 5% less likely to lated to ho khau: differences in income, be in school. The gaps are much larger social connections, and preferences for for children age 15-17 (upper secondary schooling could all potentially depress level). Those with short-term registra- school enrollment among the population tion are 37% less likely to be in school, with temporary registration. However, and those with long-term registration gaps persist for lower and upper sec- are 16% less likely to be in school than ondary enrollment in regression models permanent registrants. (Full regression which control for observable charac- results are shown in Annex 2). teristics. Controlling for other factors, TABLE 11 Public and private net school enrollment rates by registration status Registration status Permanent Temporary All temporary Long-term Short-term temporary temporary Preschool Public net enrollment 45% 21% 25% 10% Private net enrollment 29% 52% 52% 52% Total net enrollment 73% 73% 77% 62% Primary Public net enrollment 93% 81% 80% 88% Private net enrollment 5% 14% 15% 6% Total net enrollment 98% 95% 96% 94% Lower secondary Public net enrollment 98% 80% 86% 60% Private net enrollment 2% 8% 7% 14% Total net enrollment 99% 88% 93% 74% Upper secondary Public net enrollment 79% 25% 32% 8% Private net enrollment 10% 5% 7% 0% Total net enrollment 89% 30% 39% 8% Sources: Analysis of 2015 Household Registration Survey Note: Pre-school: 3-5 year old; Primary: 6-10; Lower secondary: 11-14; Upper secondary 15-17 CHAPTER 3 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M 29 58. Temporary registrants pay costs reported at some levels for perma- slightly more for public preschools but nent registrants reflect additional ser- less for other levels than permanent vices or quality. For example, it is possi- registrants. Both past qualitative re- ble that permanent registrants purchase search and the HKQS in 2015 included more extra classes than temporary regis- accounts that temporary registrants were trants. In any case, these findings do not sometimes asked to make extra payments suggest that the costs of public education to enroll their children in public school. are a much higher burden for tempo- However, reported education costs per rary registrants. Temporary registrants student by level do not provide evidence who attend private school do face higher of this pattern, except to some extent at costs. As Table 13 shows, unsurprising- the preschool level. Table 12 shows total ly, the overall costs of private school are annual school costs by school type and much higher than that of public school at registration. It is possible that the higher every level. TABLE 12 Average public school annual education costs by registration status and school level (million VND) Registration status Permanent Temporary All temporary Long-term Short-term temporary temporary Preschool 8.9 9.8 10.4 7.1 Primary 7.9 7.3 7.4 6.4 Lower secondary 9.3 5.5 5.7 4.4 Upper secondary 12.2 9.3 9.7 7.1 Sources: Analysis of 2015 Household Registration Survey TABLE 13 Average annual educational costs by private vs. public and school level (million VND) Public schools Private schools Preschool 9.1 13.8 Primary 7.8 24.0 Lower secondary 8.9 28.0 Upper secondary 12.0 23.8 Sources: Analysis of 2015 Household Registration Survey 30 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M  CHAPTER 3 59. Taken as a whole, the education participate in the social health insurance results suggest that temporary status program through their employer regard- remains a barrier to equality of oppor- less of registration status. tunity. Because school spots are rationed to permanent registrants, children with 62. The ho khau registration book temporary registration are less likely is used to define a household for pur- to attend school at the lower and upper poses of purchasing household health secondary levels. Although the costs of insurance. Those not otherwise enrolled public school are not substantially differ- in the social health insurance program ent for temporary registrants, those who (as members of a subsidized group or via attend at the preschool and primary level an employer) can pay to enroll in house- are more likely to attend private schools, hold health insurance. To enroll through at much higher cost. Similar findings this program, all members of the house- were found in earlier studies, in partic- hold who do not otherwise have insur- ular the UPS from 2009 in Ho Chi Minh ance must be enrolled. In other words, City and Ha Noi. The findings indicate it is not possible for an individual to registration status persists as an obstacle purchase enrollment in the social health to equal school access in those cities as insurance program independently of his well as elsewhere. or her family. The household registration book is used to determine family mem- Access to health care bership. 63. By law, all children under 6 60. Concerns about health care and are entitled to social health insurance ho khau focus on the financial burden without reference to their ho khau sta- associated with the interaction of the tus. However, in practice children with- registration system and the govern- out temporary registration have faced ment’s social health insurance system. challenges in obtaining coverage. The Specifically, there are two potential prob- procedure is that a child must first ob- lems. First, lack of permanent registra- tain a birth certificate and then a health tion status may be a barrier to accessing insurance card. At the time of field work social health insurance, particularly for for this study in 2015, a birth certificate children. Second, those with insurance could only be obtained at the household’s may face higher medical bills due to the place of permanent registration. Howev- structure of copayment rules. er as of January, 2016 by law a household can obtain a birth certificate with tem- 61. Almost everyone who has health porary registration. The health insur- insurance in Vietnam participates in ance card is issued by a health facility the social health insurance program. upon presentation of the birth certificate For the population as a whole, approxi- and either the permanent registration mately 76% participate.17 Various groups booklet or proof of temporary registra- participate in the single program with dif- tion. Thus in principle temporary reg- ferentiated subsidies for health insurance istration status should no longer be an premiums and differentiated copayment obstacle to obtaining a health insurance rates. Workers with formal jobs generally card. However, in practice local officials CHAPTER 3 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M 31 may inconsistently implement policies “poor list”. Eligibility for the poor list and regarding both the birth certificate and subsidized health insurance is discussed the health insurance card. Both earlier in a subsequent section of this chapter qualitative work and the HKQS reported dealing with social protection programs. cases of both children and adults not in formal jobs who were unable to obtain 65. For children under age 6, the social health insurance due to their ho survey evidence indicates that the ho khau status. khau system may present some obsta- cle to obtaining social health insur- 64. Among adults, differences in ance. There is a substantial gap in cov- insurance coverage rates by registra- erage rates among those with permanent tion status are small. Table 14 shows registration (87%) and temporary reg- insurance coverage rates for the five istration (74%). For uninsured young provinces covered by the survey, by reg- children with temporary registration, istration status and age group. In every ho khau status was cited as the principal province, coverage rates are somewhat reason for lack of insurance by a plu- lower for those with temporary regis- rality of respondents (25%). A gap per- tration status. Overall, 68% of perma- sists among older children (ages 6-14), nent registrants and 64% of temporary although coverage rates are higher: 96% registrants have some form of health for permanent registrants and 88% for insurance. Regression analysis shows temporary residents. Regression analy- that controlling for other characteristics, sis in the Annex shows varying patterns adults with short-term status are 7% less by age and short vs. long-term status. likely to have insurance, while there is Controlling for other characteristics, no statistically significant difference be- children under 6 with long-term tempo- tween long-term temporary and perma- rary registrant status are 7% less likely to nent registrants. (Full regression results have insurance, while children 6-15 with are shown in Annex 3.) For poor adults, short-term temporary registrant status access to subsidized health insurance is are 8% less likely to have insurance. determined by whether they are on the TABLE 14 Health insurance coverage rates by age group and registration status Registration status Permanent Temporary Age group All temporary Long-term Short-term temporary temporary Children 0-5 87% 74% 73% 78% Children 6-14 96% 88% 91% 74% Adults 15+ 68% 64% 65% 62% Sources: Analysis of 2015 Household Registration Survey 32 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M  CHAPTER 3 66. Women largely bear the burden cal case was described by a participant in of dealing with limited access to health the HKQS: insurance for children. Qualitative in- “I still can buy health insurance, but terviews indicate that women typically because my permanent ho khau is take primary responsibility for navigat- in Hue, I have to go back to Hue for ing the hurdles of health (and education) health checkups, and if I use health access for their children. Women who care services here, I must pay 70% of are working in particular can face the total costs. This is a hardship for me.” challenge of taking time off from work Temporary registrant, woman, Nai to negotiate the rules to obtain coverage Hien Dong Ward, Da Nang and care for their children. However, participants in the HKQS also indicated that designating a local health 67. Qualitative studies have also facility is not difficult for formal sec- suggested that those without perma- tor workers, who are enrolled in social nent registration face typically face health insurance by their employers. higher health care costs.18 Concerns raised in those studies revolved princi- 68. Results from the HRS show that pally around the costs they face in using temporary registrants are more likely insurance. Individuals with social health to have a designated health facility that insurance designate a health facility as is distant from their current residence. their principal location for health ser- Nineteen percent of temporary regis- vices. Obtaining health services at loca- trants have a designated health facility in tions other than one’s designated facility another province, compared to just 1% of is possible, but only by paying a higher permanent registrants (Table 15). These co-payment fees. The studies suggested temporary registrants face higher costs that some temporary registrants were in using health facilities in their place unable to transfer their facility designa- residence. tion to a facility where they lived. A typi- TABLE 15 Location of registered health care facility Registration status of household head Permanent Temporary All temporary Long-term Short-term temporary temporary Commune of residence 18% 10% 11% 7% Other commune in district of residence 45% 44% 45% 40% Other district in province of residence 36% 27% 26% 28% Other province 1% 19% 17% 25% 100% 100% 100% 100% Sources: Analysis of 2015 Household Registration Survey CHAPTER 3 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M 33 69. All together, the health results Social participation indicate that temporary status may re- main a barrier to equality of opportu- nity, although less so than earlier qual- 70. Those with temporary registra- itative work suggested. The substantial tion status are much less likely to be number of temporary residents with involved in local organizations and so- health insurance (including young chil- cial activities. Participation rates at the dren) and who report that their designat- household level for a variety of groups ed a health facility in place of residence and activities are shown in Table 16. demonstrates that temporary ho khau For almost all organizations, substantial is not a universal obstacle to accessing numbers of permanent registrants but health services. Nonetheless, the results few temporary registrants participate. point to a worrisome gap between offi- The one exception is trade union partic- cial policy and implementation. In par- ipation, which is higher for temporary ticular, more than one quarter of young workers, owing to the large number of children with temporary status lack temporary registrants working wage jobs health insurance, despite a policy of uni- served by a trade union. Likewise, tem- versal coverage. porary registrants are much less likely TABLE 16 Participation rates of households in organizations and social activities Registration status of household head Permanent Temporary All temporary Long-term Short-term temporary temporary Organizations Youth Union 17% 6% 6% 7% Woman's Association 43% 5% 6% 2% Farmer's Association 13% 1% 1% 0% Trade Union 19% 27% 28% 25% Veterans' Association 12% 0% 0% 0% Elders' Association 15% 0% 0% 0% Social activities and relationships Population unit's meeting 84% 17% 21% 10% Voting at the local level 82% 21% 22% 18% Voting at the district, city and central level 34% 7% 8% 7% Meeting for comments on policies 64% 12% 15% 8% Contribution to social funds or donations 85% 29% 30% 27% Neighborhood events 92% 44% 47% 40% Communication with neighbors 98% 92% 93% 90% Sources: Analysis of 2015 Household Registration Survey 34 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M  CHAPTER 3 to participate in formal social activities, sometimes required to present confir- such as local meetings. There is little dif- mation from their place of permanent ference, however, in rates of communica- registration that they are not receiving tion with neighbors. social assistance at that location. None- theless, in HKQS, some temporary res- 71. It is not clear if low levels of ident households in Da Nang reported participation are a consequence of that they received some support desig- temporary registration status. It is pos- nated for the poor. The approach appears sible that those with temporary status are to more welcoming in Ho Chi Minh City, discouraged from participating in formal where local officials reported that they organizations and activities. But it is also consider temporary resident households likely that low participation rates reflect to be eligible for the poor list. The mixed the more shallow connections temporary experiences reported in the HKQS sug- registrants have with the community gest that local policies towards inclusion due to having lived less time on average of temporary registrants on the poor list in the commune. In any case, these low are inconsistent. participation rates suggest that the social networks of temporary registrants are 73. Data from the 2015 HRS shows relatively thin, which could create chal- that in all but one of the provinces cov- lenges for them in acquiring information ered by the survey, few households are about how to access public services. on the poor list, regardless of regis- tration status. Table 17 shows the frac- Social protection tion in each province by registration status designated poor. In three of the four heavily urban provinces—Ho Chi 72. The HKQS and earlier qualita- Minh City, Ha Noi, and Da Nang—the tive studies have suggested that tempo- fractions are higher for permanent reg- rary registrants face barriers in access- istrants, but in Binh Duong, the frac- ing social protection. A critical question tion of the population designated poor is whether temporary registrants are eli- is higher among temporary registrants. gible for the “poor list”—the official local Across all four provinces, few are on the list of who is considered poor and thus poor list, reflecting the relative wealth of eligible for a variety of social assistance urbanized Vietnam. Only in Dak Nong, measures. Earlier qualitative studies which is the one largely rural province in have reported that although not express- the HRS, are substantial numbers on the ly barred from the poor list, in practice poor list: 27 percent of permanent reg- temporary registrants are rarely includ- istrants and 10.1 percent of temporary ed. According to these studies, tempo- registrants. rary residents considered for the list are CHAPTER 3 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M 35 TABLE 17 Percentage of households designated poor by province Registration status of household head Permanent Temporary All temporary Long-term Short-term temporary temporary Binh Duong 2.4 4.2 3.8 6.3 HCM City 5.5 2.5 1.5 3.8 Ha Noi 2.7 0.7 0.6 0.9 Da Nang 6.1 3.5 4.3 0 Dak Nong 27 10.1 10.2 9.1 Sources: Analysis of 2015 Household Registration Survey 74. The HRS yields some mild evi- low for almost all targeted government dence that poor temporary registrants programs and subsidies. This is unsur- face challenges in being included on prising given the low numbers of house- the poor list. Decisions about who is in- hold on the poor list and the overall high cluded on the poor list are made by local level of income in these areas. Among authorities based on a complex process, permanent registrant households, only which in principle takes household in- one program—support in purchasing come as the primary criterion. A regres- health insurance cards—has a coverage sion analysis of poor status can be found rate exceeding three percent. Participa- in Annex 4. Controlling for income, tion rates are slightly lower for tempo- household registration status, province, rary registrants for almost all programs. and urban location, households with The overall participation rate is highest long-term temporary status are just 3% for subsidized health insurance, which less likely than permanent registrants to is provided to 14 percent of permanent be on the poor list. (Long- and short- registrant households and 8 percent of term temporary households combined temporary registrant households. In the are 2% less likely to be on the poor list.) qualitative work, some individuals re- ported not being eligible for the poor list 75. Coverage rates in the provinc- and subsidized health insurance due to es surveyed by the HRS are extremely their temporary status. (See Box 3). 36 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M  CHAPTER 3 BOX 3 Shortcomings in health care by health insurance cards of temporary residents Mr. Thanh’s family rented a house in West Not being in the poor list means that they were Thanh Khe ward, Da Nang city. His family have not eligible for free health insurance in Da Nang. stayed there as temporary residents for over 10 Thus, every two weeks Mr. Thanh had to accom- years. Mr. Thanh was a worker. His mother was pany his sick mother to his hometown in Quang 75 and sick. His wife was unemployed and his Nam province to get medicine because that was children were of school age. his mother’s permanent household registration Considering his difficult circumstance, the and where her health insurance was issued. Trav- head of his resident group requested the ward elling consumed much time, money and was not to classify his family as a poor family so that good for his mother’s health and costed him they can get subsidies and support from the leave days as well. After a very careful consider- State. After multiple applications and proce- ation, he decided to send his mother to his sister’s dures, they were told that they were not eligible home at his hometown for free health check and for being included in the poor list due to their medicine. His decision of sending his mother to lack of permanent household registration. Quang Nam made him feel helpless and guilty. Sources: HQKS Fieldwork TABLE 18 Percentage of households participating in organizations and social activities Registration status of household head Permanent Temporary All temporary Long-term Short-term temporary temporary Targeted government programs Support in purchasing health insurance 13% 8% 8% 8% Reduction of an exemption from medical costs 3% 2% 2% 3% Reduction of and exemption from tuition fees 2% 1% 1% 2% Food subsidy 2% 1% 1% 1% Direct supports to poor households/ethnic minorities 2% 1% 1% 0% Preferential credit for the poor/ethnic minorities 2% 1% 1% 1% Other programs 1% 0% 0% 1% Subsidies Electricity subsidy 1% 0% 0% 0% Emergency food subsidy 1% 0% 0% 1% Subsidy to low-income government employees 0% 0% 0% 0% Preferable subsidies to people with merits 2% 0% 0% 0% Subsidies to poor households 2% 0% 1% 0% Other subsidies 2% 1% 1% 0% General social services Provision of information regarding policies 76% 33% 36% 29% Provision of information regarding health care 79% 39% 40% 38% Immunization 80% 45% 47% 40% Disease control campaigns 83% 45% 46% 42% Sources: Analysis of 2015 Household Registration Survey CHAPTER 3 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M 37 76. Overall, the findings indicate they typically pay more per kilowatt-hour that the number of people affected by (kwh) of electricity, due to the particular limited social protection access for structure of electricity billing. temporary registrants is limited. Due to the relative prosperity of the areas where 78. Temporary registrants who are temporary registrants are located—and renting face higher costs because they the bulk of temporary registrants them- are typically not eligible for the elec- selves—few qualify for social protection tricity utility’s progressive rate struc- programs. However, due to inconsistent ture. Each household is charged 1632 policies regarding eligibility of tempo- VND per kwh for the first 50 kwh and rary registrants, in some cases those who then more per kwh on an increasing would otherwise be on the poor list are scale (see Table 19). A household can excluded. sign an agreement with the electricity authority that allows it to receive an indi- Electricity vidual meter and pay on this progressive scale. A household is eligible for such an agreement if it has permanent registra- 77. Temporary registrants face rel- tion. A household with temporary regis- atively high costs for electricity. Nu- tration can sign such an agreement, but merous respondents in the interviews only if it has a certificate of house own- conducted for the HKQS complained ership, and in such case the contract with that they pay excessively high charges for the authority must be for at least 1 year.19 electricity as a consequence of their tem- Temporary registrant households that porary status. In fact, expenditure data are renting their residences are generally (presented in Table 10 in Chapter 2) show not eligible for these agreements unless that on average temporary registrants they are guaranteed by the landlords. spend less on electricity in total. However, TABLE 19 Official electricity tariffs VND 0-50 kwh 1632 51 - 100 kwh 1686 101 -200 kwh 1965 201 -300 kwh 2466 301 -400 kwh 2753 >400 kwh 2846 Sources: EVN Decree of March 12, 2015 Note: Figures shown are listed tariffs plus 10% VAT 38 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M  CHAPTER 3 79. Temporary registrants who are ments as complicated, they do not want renting typically play a flat per kilo- to have to make continued adjustments watt hour rate. Without their own me- as the number of renters changes, or they ter, they pay indirectly, to a landlord who do not want to report the number of pays for multiple households billed on renters to authorities for fear it may af- a single meter. The rate charged to the fect their tax bill. Overall, because they household is determined by the landlord. are able to pass on their costs to renters, Among households paying a flat rate to landlords do not face any incentive to the landlord in the HRS, the average rate seek application of the provision. was 2884, which is slightly higher than the highest rate on the progressive scale General services access and shown in Table 19. (A household pay- ing on the progressive scale would only experiences with the Ho khau pay the highest rate for its consumption system beyond 400kwh and thus would thus pay a substantially lower average rate.) 81. A common complaint of tem- Therefore, a typical temporary registrant porary registrants is that without per- household that is renting pays more than manent registration they are unable to a typical permanent registrant house- use basic government document pro- hold, as respondents in the qualitative cedures in their place of residence. Re- survey indicated. spondents in the HKQS cited many such cases. Carrying out such procedures 80. The law does include a provision typically requires temporary registrants to apply the progressive scale to rent- to return to the locality where they have ers with temporary status. However, permanent registration, which can be in interviews conducted for the HKQS, quite distant. Box 4 presents lists of pro- local officials and renters explained that cedures in two wards that require perma- it is rarely used. Under this provision, nent registration. A typical complaint is a landlord for a building with multiple as follows: households can petition to have every Without the residence booklet, we have four renters counted as one household to go to our hometown for verification (regardless of registration status) for bill- of required documents, such as change ing purposes and be billed using the pro- of an ID card. The return coach ticket gressive price ladder for each household. to Soc Trang costs me 260,000 VND. I Few landlords follow this procedure for have to take three days off. various reasons: they are unaware of the (Focus group discussion with migrant policy, they view the paperwork require- factory workers, An Lac, Binh Tan) CHAPTER 3 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M 39 BOX 4 Procedures that require household registration books in the application files, posted at the ward-level People’s Committee office Nai Hien Dong ward, Son Tra district, Nghia Thanh ward, Gia Nghia town, Da Nang Dak Nong o Birth registration o Birth registration o Birth registration for abandoned children o Verification of contract for land use right o Birth registration for dead infants transfer o Birth re-registration o Résumé verification o Overdue birth registration o Making a letter of authorization o Death declaration/registration o Authorized contract on real estate o Death re-registration o Certificate of rejection of real-estate inheri- o Marriage registration tance o Marriage re-registration o Verification of will o Granting paper of marital status verifica- o Verification of mortgage contracts tion o Procedure of bank loan application for poor o Granting paper of marital status verifica- households tion to Vietnamese nationals residing inside o Making files of request for separation, the country for marriage with foreigners at merging or transfer of land use purposes foreign competent agencies o Social welfare claim o Registration of guardianship o Hardship verification for students to be eli- o Registration of change or termination of gible for credit loans. guardianship o Verification of poor-household status o Registration of recognition of parental rela- o Examination of funeral/burial expense claim tionship o Examination of request for elderly care at o Registration of change and correction of social protection facilities civil status for persons under 14 years of age o Examination of claims for entitlement to o Registration of addition of civil status for public housing purchase. every subject regardless of age. o Vocational training for the poor o Registration of amendments of content in o Verification of request to participate in the civil status book and other civil status doc- job creation program uments o File for claiming preferential treatment to o Granting of copies of civil status papers persons who have the merit of assisting the from civil status books Revolution (including various types of pref- o Registration of child adoption erential treatment) o Re-registration of child adoption o Verification of request for financial aid for o Re-registration of de-facto child adoption children belonging to Program 19. 40 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M  CHAPTER 3 82. A recent change in the law has 83. Temporary registrants with an eased the process of civil registration intention to stay would like to obtain for temporary registrants. Previously, permanent status. Just over half (53%) of to register for a birth or marriage certif- those who have temporary status say that icate, temporary registrants had to return they intend to stay permanently in their to their place of permanent registration. current city/province, and nearly all of That changed under the new Law on Civil that group (51%) say they would like to Status which went effect at the beginning obtain permanent status (Table 18). In the of 2016 (after the study period of the HRS HKQS, some respondents reported that and HKQS). Article 5 of the new law in- they worried that switching their perma- cludes the following provision: nent status would threaten their land use Individuals can register their civil sta- rights in their place of origin, their ability tus in the civil registry in either their to inherit real estate there, and their emo- permanent resident, their temporary tional ties with their relatives. residence, or current residence. In the case when the individuals do not reg- 84. Although complaints of in- ister at their permanent residence, the formal payments associated with ho office in which they register must in- khau status appear in the interviews form their registration to the People’s conducted for the HKQS, very few re- Committee of the commune/ward ported such payments in the HRS. where they have permanent registra- Less than 1% of temporary registrants tion status. report having been fined for issues relat- Thus, the civil registration procedures ed to ho khau, and just over 2% report (which are distinct from household reg- having had to pay a bribe (Table 20). At istration) of birth and marriage registra- the same time, many respondents in the tion can be carried out at one’s place of HKQS reported cases of having to pay current residence, even for someone who informal fees to receive a verification of has neither permanent or temporary reg- temporary registration status. It is likely istration at that place. This change rep- that the HRS was not a good instrument resents a substantial easing of adminis- to collect information on such payments, trative for temporary registrants. as respondents may have unable or re- luctant to differentiate formal payments from informal payments. TABLE 20 Experiences of citizens with ho khau Permanent Temporary All temporary Long-term Short-term temporary temporary Plan to stay permanently in city/province 96% 53% 55% 49% Would like to obtain permanent residence status - 51% 51% 51% Have been fined for policy for ho khau related issues 0% 0.9% 1.0% 0.6% Have paid bribe for issues related to ho khau 0% 2.2% 2.2% 2.2% Sources: Analysis of 2015 Household Registration Survey CHAPTER 3 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M 41 85. Likewise, in the HKQS, many 86. The differing reports on infor- respondents reported making large mal payments is the only substantial payments to obtain either permanent difference in findings between the HRS or temporary registration status, but and the HKQS. The contrast between such payments were not common in the the qualitative results and the household HRS. Just 6% percent of those who ob- survey findings suggests that it is likely tained permanent status since 2005 and that respondents in the HRS were re- 17% of those who obtained temporary luctant to report on having made large status since 2005 reported paying more payments, which would be identified as than 500,000 VND (Table 21). In contrast, corruption. Respondents in the HKQS in the pilot for the HRS and in the HKQS, also noted that in some cases they were many people reported paying multiple required to make informal payments not millions of VND. Here is one example: explicitly to change ho khau status but “I spent two or three million dong in to obtain documents and signatures re- obtaining the temporary residence sta- quired for the processing of ho khau, and tus booklet. They later require a further in answering the more structured ques- couple of millions of dong for the ‘ho tions of the HRS, respondents may not khau’ but I don’t have money for it.” have thought to include such payments. (Casual female laborer, Ward 13, Go Vap). TABLE 21 Payments for changing registration status Payment amount Do not Did not pay <100K 100k-500K 500K-2 million >2 million remember Payment for changing from 14% 52% 21% 6% 5% 1% short-term to long-term status Payment for changing from 17% 62% 3% 2% 2% 14% temporary to permanent Sources: Analysis of 2015 HRS Note: Sample is only people who have changed status since 2005 42 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M  CHAPTER 4 Ho khau in the media, policy 2 CHAPTERS discussions, and citizen perceptions Analysis of press coverage, statements of public officials, and citizen views expressed in both the HKQS and the HRS provide a sense of the range of opinions on the house- hold registration system. Since 2006, the media has portrayed an intense debate on the system, reflecting a high level of citizen interest in the topic. Despite the high level of government control of the press, newspaper stories have presented a diversity of views, increasingly including strong criticisms of the system. Recent newspaper stories and social media have highlighted individual tales of hardship associated with the system. Likewise, public officials have engaged in vigorous debate about the system. Substantial numbers of citizens surveyed express support for ho khau, but at the same time a large majority say that it limits the rights of people without permanent status and should be made less restrictive. Media coverage papers: two fully state-funded newspa- pers (Nhan dan and Ha Noi Moi), the two most widely-read Vietnamese online 87. Press coverage of the household newspapers which are partially private- registration system provides a win- ly-funded (Vietnamnet and VnExpress), dow on the level of citizen interest and the most widely-read print newspaper the range of views about the system. (Tuoi tre), and a paper focused on Viet- From 2007 to 2015, 7611 articles which namese workers (Nguoi Lao dong). Ta- mentioned the ho khau system were ble 22 shows the number of articles in published in Vietnamese newspapers.20 each paper over the study period which Analysis presented here concerns the mention ho khau and the number which coverage of the issue in six major news- have ho khau in the headline. CHAPTER 4 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M 43 TABLE 22 Media coverage of the ho khau system, 2007 - 2015 Newspaper Mentioned articles Headlines Người Lao động 487 26 Tuổi trẻ 464 53 VnExpress 440 53 Vietnamnet 437 29 Hà Nội Mới 419 7 Nhân dân 366 13 88. The most popular newspapers progressive media organizations such as had the highest levels of coverage of Tuoi tre, Nguoi Lao dong, and Vietnamnet ho khau, indicating that the topic is of occasionally publish articles or commen- interest to readers. The two newspapers taries which criticize ho khau. with the highest level of state control— Nhan dan and Ha Noi Moi—had the few- 90. Media coverage of ho khau can est headlines mentioning ho khau, while be divided into three time periods: the two most popular newspapers—Vn- 2006-2009, 2010-2012, and 2013-2015. Express for online journalism and Tuoi During the 2006–09 period, the tone of tre for print—had the highest number of coverage differed between state-fund- headlines on the topic. ed newspapers and newspapers with partial private funding. While the fully 89. Despite the strong level of state state press tended to take a more neutral control, the press reflects a variety of stance, media with partial private fund- views in general and regarding ho khau ing tended to be more negative. The state in particular. All news media organi- newspaper Nhan dan newspaper de- zations in Vietnam are state-owned or fended the ho khau system, arguing that owned by organizations which fall under it was needed to control residency: the umbrella of the Communist Party. It’s not fair to blame all evils for the ho Although the tight restrictions facing the khau system…I think it is not neces- press have been loosened in recent years, sary to state in the Law on Residence international rankings still reflect an envi- that ho khau is only used for residence ronment of strong state control. In the 2014 control…For example, for the purpose Press Freedom Index by Reporters with- of recruiting citizens for military train- out Borders, a media watchdog, Vietnam ing or calling people to cast their votes was ranked 174th out of 180 countries. in elections, the government needs to Nonetheless, the press presents a variety of build the list based on the ho khau sys- views. While state-owned or party-owned tem. Without it, how could we do? media such as Nhan dan and Ha Noi Moi In contrast, the partially private Tuoi tre refrain from criticizing the ho khau policy cited experts who argued the system vio- harshly, and Nhan Dan occasionally pub- lated the Constitution by restricting citi- lished articles supportive the system, more zens’ rights: 44 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M  CHAPTER 4 The right to residence is the holy one ho khau systems. During this period, de- of citizens…But now the authori- bates on the issue of ho khau at local level, ty says that if I don’t have ho khau I particularly in Ha Noi and Da Nang, also cannot buy a house. When I apply for caught the attention of the press. When ho khau they in return ask whether the draft Capital Law was introduced, I have a house…All of these regula- media outlets expressed concerns about tions are against the Constitution. the “uncivilized’ habits of immigrants”. These do not only restrict the right to Ha Noi Moi took a strong stand in favor freedom of residence but also other of the Capital Law, which increased the citizens’ rights. restrictions for permanent registration in Immediately after this article was pub- Ha Noi.28 lished, a response commentary was published in the state-funded Nhan dan 92. In recent years, over the pe- questioning the “correctness” of “some riod 2014-15, the Vietnamese media articles” on ho khau24. The commentary has gone further in amplifying voices explained that ho khau is vital: calling for the reform or elimination of Registering and controlling ho khau… the ho khau system. When the Nation- is an important measure of the State al Assembly discussed the 2014 Law on to manage society, contributing to Civil Status, the 2014 Law on Citizen’s the national security, social order and Identity Card, and the Project 896 to safety, guaranteeing the legitimate build the National Database for Popula- interests and rights of the people. tion, the press discussed the possibility When our country is in the process of that the proposed changes would make building the socialist-oriented market ho khau redundant.29 The distinction economy, reforming these procedures between the coverage of this period in is in urgent need. For this we can say: comparison to the previous ones is that ho khau can be the new wine in the newspapers were more outspoken in old bottle. Ho khau continues to show their criticisms. The new wave of cover- its roles, values, and historic responsi- age included direct criticisms addressing bility in the new development era.25 highly sensitive issues such as human and constitutional rights. Previously, 91. During the period 2010 – 13, newspapers principally quoted the views relatively little coverage of ho khau ap- of experts, but during the current peri- peared in the press. When the media od several newspapers choose to publish did mention ho khau, it mostly criticized commentaries which directly represent- the bureaucratic barriers which pre- ed their voices. vented immigrants in centrally-admin- Finding a job, buying a house, going istered cities from obtaining permanent to school, accessing to electricity and ho khau. For example, Tuoi tre on May water – all need “Mr. Ho khau”. The 27, 2013 published an article “Ho khau is specter has lingered for so long and nothing, but everything” which collected the desire to escape from it has grown anti-ho khau opinions from citizens and strongly. Up to now, although there experts. The same newspaper quoted a have been some loosening policies, it lawmaker who noted that besides Viet- is still a question on when ho khau is nam only North Korea and China have eliminated from citizens’ life. CHAPTER 4 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M 45 The most threatening characteristic of readers expressing criticism of the Na- ho khau is not its very existence, be- tional Assembly.35 Criticisms of the ho cause if it is just a form of civilized res- khau system have been that it causes idence management it will be a nor- unnecessary bureaucratic procedures, mal practice. However, since it came creates double-standard for citizens, into existence, ho khau is a collection prevents them from fully enjoying pub- of outdated mindsets of management, lic services, and creates loopholes for restricting and violating many legal corruption. Some readers wrote that rights of citizens. ho khau was a violation of the Vietnam In a commentary, VnExpress implied Constitution. Here is a typical example that ho khau showed the inability of the of a call for reform in a reader comment: authority to make life better for citizens: I think it is very important to change …Don’t soak your anger over the the outdated way of residence control. innocent ho khau. It is only a way of Indeed I cannot explain why a very residence control which the author- suitable and realistic proposal [that ity uses to restrict and filter citizens ho khau system be removed], which with the confusion. Because of this receives high supports from the peo- confusion, they have no concrete plan ple and National Assembly represen- for it: loosening ho khau when being tatives, can’t be implemented? It is too criticized, then tightening it when it is strange.36 going out of the reach. 95. Controversies on press web- 93. One notable characteristic of sites emerged during the discussion recent media coverage of ho khau is on the Capital Law in 2010 and 2012. discussion of unfair treatment as a re- Comments on the ho khau issues in the sult of the system. For example, there is Capital Law mostly focused on perceived the case of Do Hong Son, a high school violations of constitutional rights and student who was suspended for not le- the consequences of the new residen- gally obtaining a ho khau in Ha Noi. He tial space requirements to qualify for ho then sent a letter to the President of Viet- khau: nam to ask for his intervention to contin- This regulation helps landlords to ue studying. The media covered the case raise housing rents! In Ha Noi a piece closely, and Nguoi Lao dong newspaper of land is equal to a piece of gold, how took it as an example of why the ho khau much will we need to pay for rent? system should be dismantled.34 That explains why there are many people living under the stairs now.37 94. Another barometer of public sentiment comes from reader respons- 96. Another measure of citizen es published on media websites, which interest in ho khau is the intensity of have consistently voiced criticisms of Google searches on the topic, which ho khau. After it published an article has increased dramatically since 2006 reporting that National Assembly’s rep- (Figure 4). Surges in the number of resentatives were hesitant to dismantle surges have taken place when changes in the ho khau system, Vietnamnet said it legislation relevant to ho khau have been received “hundreds of e-mails” from its passed or gone into effect. The number 46 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M  CHAPTER 4 of searches reached high levels on July 1, it still survives, nor explains logically 2007, when the 2006 Law on Residence why it should. But it still survives. It went into effect and when the National survives to torture the people unrea- Assembly discussed and passed the 2014 sonably and as a tool for the police to Law on Civil Status and 2014 Law on Cit- earn illegal money. izen Identity Cards. Blogger Vo Thuong told a story about how a graduate with distinction could 97. On social media, commentary not find a job because she does not hold has generally been negative towards the city’s ho khau38: the ho khau system. Triet hoc Duong pho After finishing the course, with a dis- (Street Philosophy), a blog popular with tinction, my friend was eager on her young Vietnamese, published several ar- bright future. She applied for several ticles which criticized ho khau, including hospitals in the city [Ho Chi Minh the following: City]. However, all responses were the There has never been anything that same: affects too much to the lives of Viet- Do you hold Ho Chi Minh City ho namese, particularly ones who live khau? away from their home like ho khau. “No, I come from another prov- I know several friends who study in ince.” My friend replied. the People’s Police Academy. I asked “Really? Then please come back them and several policemen what ho and apply for job in your province, khau is. No one gave me a clear an- we only receive people who hold swer. Even those who are supposed to the city’s ho khau, Saigon ho khau be responsible for the system do not only. Thanks for your time. know what it is. No one knows how FIGURE 4 Trends in google searches in Vietnam for ho khau July August 100 72 74 A C FE D B July 2007 51 G H I ML K J N 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 Sources: Analysis of Google Trends data. Note: Number represents the highest point (search) in the figure is 100. The points are relative numbers (not the real numbers of searches) which represent the search term popularity in comparison to other searches. CHAPTER 4 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M 47 Debate among public officials istry of Public Security to the Minister of Home Affairs.40 Representative Le Thi Nga from 98. Ho khau has generated heated Thanh Hoa Province suggested replac- debate when discussed by government ing ho khau with a residence card41. officials. Substantial discussion emerged Howe­ ver, it was evident during the dis- around the 2006 Law on Residence, the cussion sessions of the National Assem- Revised 2013 Law on Residence, the bly that there were still many opinions 2014 Law on Civil Status, and the 2014 against the move, particularly from the Law on Citizen Identity Card. At the lo- National Assembly Standing Commit- cal level, the Capital Law (drafted in 2010 tee and the Ministry of Public Securi- and passed in 2012) and regulations in ty. The two institutions argued that it specific localities, such as Da Nang’s Res- was vital to keep the ho khau system olution No 23/NQ-HĐND in 2012, also to maintain social order and security.42 were the topic of discussion. Ho Chi Minh City representative Phan Anh Minh, who was part of the Min- 99. Discussions and debates around istry of Public Security, acknowledged the 2006 Law on Residence were cen- problems with ho khau but argued that tered on two main issues: whether it changing the system would be extreme- was the time to remove the ho khau ly costly and the ho khau system could system, and if not, how to maintain be reformed. the rights to residence and movement of citizens39. The arguments for abolish- 100. The 2006 Law on Residence re- ing the ho khau system during this term tained ho khau, but the debate changed mostly focused on its violations on cit- the focus of thinking on the system. izens’ rights. Nguyen Dinh Loc, former Critics of the system introduced the no- Justice Minister and at the time a repre- tion that the system should be ground- sentative from Ho Chi Minh City, ques- ed in respect for citizens’ rights. During tioned the drafting committee: discussions on revisions to the Law on Why stick the right to freedom of Residence in 2013, debate focused on the residence of individual to the house- balance of citizens’ rights and the needs hold? We take the ho khau and of the states:43 put the human there, I am just too Freedom to residence is a fundamen- aghast. Why are we doing this para- tal right of the people. However, it doxical thing? should be recognized that citizens’ Critics of the ho khau such as Nguy- rights must be in line with their re- en Duc Dung from Kon Tum Province lations with the law and the state. argued that the security function of ho Freedom of residence does not mean khau was not longer necessary: that citizens can reside wherever they Residency management is totally a want, regardless of the needs of the civil affair. In the War the police need- state to manage the society. ed control, but now should the police General Le Dong Phong, Ministry of continue controlling the ho khau? … Public Security and representative Therefore, the ho khau system man- from HCM City. agement should move from the Min- 48 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M  CHAPTER 4 “Citizens must have the right to free- number of immigrants come in [in ac- dom of residence. State administrative cordance with the Law on Residence], institutions must create the best con- it would be very hard to guarantee the ditions for them to realize that right, living standard for citizens. Therefore, instead of just threatening to ban or Ha Noi needs to have restrictive regu- remove the ho khau, which troubles lations. citizens,” Pham Quang Nghi, VCP Secretary in Nguyen Sinh Hung, Chairman of the Ha Noi, Ha Noi representative46 National Assembly In 2012 a revised version of the law passed without the employment and sal- “Why do we still use ho khau as the ary requirements, and with the residency fundamental in all administrative requirement cut to three years. procedures, while it is only a tool for public security? Why are we so out- Citizen views on the ho khau dated?” Tran Du Lich, representative from Ho system Chi Minh City 102. Vietnamese citizens recog- 101. While overall national policy nize the problems with ho khau but at discussion has appeared to move to- the same time express support for the wards liberalization of ho khau in the system. The HRS asked respondents name of citizen rights, Ha Noi authori- whether they agreed with a variety of ties successfully pushed for stricter re- statements concerning the system. Those quirements for the capital. The Capital statements and the percentage agreeing City Law, first proposed in 2010 and later by registration status are shown in Ta- passed in 2012, gave more autonomy to ble 23. Among permanent registrants, the Ha Noi local government on various 70% agree that the system limits the issues, including ho khau. The draft law rights of people with ho khau, 48% agree proposed that ho khau only be available it discriminates against people with- to those with “a lawful employment with out ho khau, and 69% believe it should a salary of twice the amount of the min- be made less restrictive. Responses are imum wage; proof of legal accommoda- similar for those with temporary status. tion in the city; and continuous tempo- Substantial majorities, regardless of reg- rary residency of at least 5 years.”44 The istration status, express support for key chief argument made by supporters of aspects of the system, agreeing that it is the ho khau provision was the need to necessary to public safety and should be reduce immigration. One Ha Noi repre- used a pre-condition for school enroll- sentative said that other provincial rep- ment. Half of permanent registrants and resentatives “don’t understand the immi- a slightly lower percentage of temporary gration pressure on the capital” and that registrants (45%) agree it should be a “Ha Noi is suffering from over-popula- precondition for government jobs. Just tion”.45 Another argued 32% of permanent registrants and 31% of Ha Noi is currently on the process of temporary registrants believe the system drawing citizens from inner districts should be abolished. to outer areas…Now if a substantial CHAPTER 4 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M 49 TABLE 23 Attitudes towards ho khau: percentages who agree with the following statements Registration Status Permanent Temporary All temporary Long-term Short-term temporary temporary 1. The system is necessary to limit migration 64% 42% 44% 40% 2. The system is necessary to ensure public safety 89% 87% 87% 88% 3. Ho khau should be used as a precondition for school 67% 64% 66% 59% enrollment 4. Ho khau should be used a precondition for government jobs 50% 45% 45% 44% 5. The system limits the right of people without ho khau 70% 69% 67% 74% 6. The system discriminates against people with ho khau 48% 51% 51% 52% 7. The system should be less restrictive 69% 74% 74% 76% 8. The system induces corruption 59% 56% 54% 62% 9. The system should be abolished 32% 31% 29% 35% 10. Temporary residents should be able to buy health insurance 92% 89% 90% 87% Mean of index of support for ho khau system (0-10 scale) 5.0 4.7 4.8 4.5 Sources: Analysis of 2015 Household Registration Survey Note: The index is a sum of the number of statements 1-4 to which the respondent agreed plus the number of statements 5-10 to which the respondent disagreed. 103. Views differ little by registra- index is 5.0 for permanent registrants, tion status. An index of support for the 4.8 for long-term temporary registrants, system was calculated based on the full and 4.5 for short-term temporary regis- set of answers to the ten questions. The trants. The one question where a notable scale of the index ranges from 0 to 10, divide exists between permanent and where 10 indicates maximum support temporary registrants is whether the of the system and 0 corresponds to no system is necessary to limit migration. support. Surprisingly, by this index tem- Two-thirds of permanent registrants porary registrants are only slightly less agree that it is, while 44% of long-term supportive of the system than perma- temporary and 40% of short-term tem- nent registrants. The average value of the porary registrants agree. 50 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M  CHAPTER 4 TABLE 24 Mean of index of support for ho khau system Registration Status of Household Head Permanent Temporary All temporary Long-term Short-term temporary temporary Binh Duong 5.3 5.0 5.0 4.8 Ha Noi 5.5 5.2 5.1 5.3 Ho Chi Minh City 4.3 4.2 4.3 4.1 Da Nang 5.5 5.0 5.0 4.6 Dak Nong 5.8 5.3 5.3 5.9 Sources: Analysis of 2015 Household Registration Survey 104. Qualified support for the sys- here. Household registration is very tem can be understood given that ho important. If there is no household khau has been part of the fabric of life registration, people are all the same, it in Vietnam. Most citizens see the system will be very dangerous. as an essential part of the government’s Female, permanent resident, Vinh Tuy functions. Views such as the following ward, Ha Noi were expressed in the HKQS: If in a society without household reg- 105. Attitudes towards the ho khau istration, how can the government system differ substantially between Ho manage citizens? Therefore, it’s com- Chi Minh City and other provinces. The pulsory to have the household reg- index of the support for the system has istration. In a society, there must be by far the lowest value in Ho Chi Minh household registration. City, both among permanent and tempo- Female, temporary resident, Hiep Binh rary registrants. This same pattern is seen Chanh Ward, Ho Chi Minh city in response to every individual question. Table 25 contrasts attitudes between Ho There must be household registration, Chi Minh City and Ha Noi. The divide so that the citizens can be managed. is particularly stark on the question of There must be household registra- whether the system is necessary to limit tion, otherwise most-wanted men are migration. In Ha Noi, 75% of permanent hiding here, and it’s very scary. After registrants agree that it is, while in Ho committing murder, they come here Chi Minh City just 54% agree. A similar to live, they have to make residence contrast is seen in attitudes among tem- declaration if they don’t have the porary registrants. permanent household registration CHAPTER 4 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M 51 TABLE 25 Attitudes towards ho khau in Ha Noi vs Ho Chi Minh City: percentages who agree with the following statements Permanent registrants Temporary Registrants Statement Ha Noi Ho Chi Minh Ha Noi Ho Chi Minh City City The system is necessary to limit migration 75% 54% 51% 37% The system is necessary to ensure public safety 94% 82% 92% 86% Ho khau should be used as a precondition for school enrollment 71% 59% 54% 68% Ho khau should be used a precondition for government jobs 53% 43% 38% 46% The system limits the right of people without ho khau 65% 77% 58% 77% The system discriminates against people with ho khau 43% 58% 43% 59% The system should be relaxed 62% 77% 67% 81% The system induces corruption 59% 63% 52% 66% The system should be abolished 26% 43% 18% 39% Temporary residents should be able to buy health insurance 91% 92% 81% 91% Sources: Analysis of 2015 Household Registration Survey 106. The less enthusiastic support if they can demonstrate they have for ho khau in Ho Chi Minh City goes been in the city over the year…. The hand-in-hand with a more accommo- NGOs from the South [Ho Chi Minh dating approach to migrants in the City] also stressed their close co-op- country’s largest metropolis. One ob- eration with the authorities, and the server reported seeing a clear contrast importance of filling gaps in official in attitudes between the Ho Chi Minh service delivery. There were also hints City and Ha Noi during a discussion or- of a more entrepreneurial spirit, and ganized by the Asia Foundation between excited discussions of how to develop officials and NGO workers: services on the basis of social enter- The authorities in Ho Chi Minh City prise models. stressed the economic benefits of migrant workers, the economic dy- The conversation among the north- namism they provide, and the active erners [from Ha Noi] was more cau- steps local authorities are taking to try tious and focused on the risks present- and address the issues a large migrant ed by migrant workers. Participants worker population presents. They em- talked about the potential that greater phasized regulatory changes, allowing social services for migrants could lead migrants to change their registration to even higher numbers of arrivals.47 52 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M  CHAPTER 4 The findings from the HKQS also indicate to be eligible for the poor list. Likewise, that local officials have a welcoming ap- interviews for the HKQS showed that in proach to migrants in Ho Chi Minh City. contrast to Ha Noi and Da Nang, in Ho As noted in the previous chapter, among Chi Minh City local officials have made the four provinces surveyed by the qual- particular efforts to ensure that children itative study, only in Ho Chi Minh City are able to enroll in public school, re- did local officials indicate that they con- gardless of registration status. sider long-term temporary registrants CHAPTER 5 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M 53 5 CHAPTERS Fiscal issues associated with Ho khau A primary motivation for maintaining a restrictive ho khau system, expressed by cit- izens and policymakers alike, is to reduce migration to urban cities. Local officials worry about the burden that new migrants place on public services. In fiscal terms, there are concerns about the strain on subnational budgets, particularly for health and education, due to the arrival of migrants. A full accounting of the fiscal impact of migration requires taking into account their impact on not just expenditures, but all also revenues and intergovernmental transfers. These impacts can be roughly approx- imated by examining how each of these three streams vary by population across prov- inces, controlling for province characteristics. Various specifications of this analysis all show that an additional person is associated with greater expenditure, revenue, and transfers. The impact on health and education expenditure of an additional person is estimated to be an increase of 388,000 to 456,000 VND per year. The net fiscal impact of an additional migrant is somewhat uncertain but is much more positive than a fo- cus on expenditures along would imply, ranging across specifications from -697,000 to +3,346,000 VND per year. The basic issue HKQS. Concerns have been raised by subnational authorities about the strain additional migrants put on public ser- 107. One expressed motivation for vices and the drain on public resources, maintaining the ho khau system is and they see regulations in the current that it is necessary to limit migration. registration system as a way to discour- Nearly two-thirds of permanent regis- age migration.48 trants in the HRS agreed that the system is necessary to limit migration, policy- 108. This chapter brings a new ele- makers have made the same argument ment to this discussion by examining in public discussions, and local official empirical evidence on the impact of echoed this view in interviews for the migrants on subnational budgets. In- 54 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M  CHAPTER 5 creases in service delivery costs associat- and what revenues and transfers they en- ed with migrants may be offset, or partial- joy to finance those expenditures. While ly offset, by other changes in the budget there is a set of rules for transfers, those such as tax revenues and transfers, which rules are not always the final word since may also arise as a consequence of the the outcomes can be significantly affect- changes in the total population count of ed by negotiations between the central the jurisdiction.49 That may be the case and provincial authorities. with the amounts received from targeted transfers or from balancing (equaliza- 111. Vietnam has a high degree of tion) transfers, which in different ways expenditure decentralization. Current- take into account the population of each ly, subnational governments are respon- jurisdiction. There may be also direct sible for over half of total government and indirect revenue effects beyond the spending, covering important areas like system of transfers. Given the particular education, health, or economic services. complexities of the intergovernmental For education and health, subnational finance system in Vietnam, which is re- governments represent up to 90 percent viewed below, a priori it is not possible of total public expenditures.50 Most of to anticipate the sign of the net fiscal the expenditure assignments at the sub- impact (negative reflecting fiscal losses national level vary considerably with the or positive reflecting fiscal gains) arising population base or the more selective cli- from changes in population. ent base (for example, children of school age) of each jurisdiction. Expenditures 109. The analysis considers these are also quite decentralized within prov- multiple ways in which migrants may inces, with district governments being impact the fiscal situation of subna- responsible for most of the recurrent tional governments. Specifically it con- expenditures on education and health. siders several questions. How much of a However, most of the subnational capi- burden on the expenditure side are the tal spending is carried out by the provin- new residents? To what extent may they cial governments themselves. The actual generate additional revenues that may division of spending responsibilities is offset the budgetary burdens on the ex- the product of many years of practical penditure side? And in addition, to what implementation and a series of sector extent does the transfer system further regulations since formally the 2002 State offset those expenditure burdens? Budget Law assigns the same expendi- ture responsibilities to both central and The structure of intergovern- provincial governments and allows high- er levels of government to overturn the mental fiscal relations budgets approved by lower levels. Cen- tral government rules also reduce auton- 110. Intergovernmental fiscal re- omy over subnational budget decisions. lations in Vietnam are complex. The system of intergovernmental fiscal rela- 112. Subnational governments have tions in Vietnam establishes a set of rules two main sources of revenue apart from which determine what expenditures sub- transfers from the central government. national jurisdictions are responsible for These are (1) revenue retained 100 per- CHAPTER 5 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M 55 cent by subnational authorities—involv- are highly positively correlated with large ing the property tax, some excises and estimates of tax bases and therefore of fees and charges, etc.—which is the clos- revenue capacity. It is therefore very im- est that local authorities come to “own portant to note that population counts— source revenue” although subnational directly and indirectly appear on both governments have no autonomy over sides of the formula used for computing rates or administration; and (2) shared balancing transfers. So potentially those revenues with upper tiers of government effects could offset each other. on a derivation basis (or where they are collected) most significantly involving 114. Another important aspect of the personal income tax, the corporate the formula used for balancing trans- income tax and the VAT. fers is that not all jurisdictions are enti- tled to a transfer. Those provinces where 113. Vietnam has a formula-based expenditure needs exceed revenue capac- system of equalization or balancing ity, even after the 100 percent sharing of transfers and a system of conditional national taxes, receive an equalization or targeted grants known as National grant or balancing transfer. Those rel- Target Programs (NTP). The balancing atively richer (and/or less expenditure transfers’ formula calculates the differ- needs) provinces with large tax bases ence between expenditure needs and es- do not receive a balancing transfers and timates of revenue capacity. Both the esti- will be assigned under 100 percent shar- mates of expenditure needs and revenue ing rates for national taxes. The fact that capacity involve populations counts. In richer provinces, which in some cases the case of expenditure needs the effect is are also the most populated, receiving a direct one, since the formulas used for zero balancing transfers means that in- the computation of expenditure needs creases in population do not necessarily directly involve total population or par- go accompanied by increases in this type ticular segments of the population, such of transfers. Even for poorer provinc- as children of school age or elderly peo- es which do receive balancing transfers, ple. More specifically, for each major cat- the correlation between the amount re- egory of expenditure (education, health, ceived from the balancing transfers and etc.) the formula applies an expenditure population is weakened by the fact that norm (of so many VND per person, or even though the measure of expenditure per client—for example, per student) to needs increases with population, so too the eligible population in the jurisdic- does the measure of revenue capacity and tion in order to arrive at the expenditure these two effects tend to cancel each other need for that category of expenditures. out. On the other hand, targeted transfers Total expenditure needs are the sum of which are received by all provinces and those in each category of expenditure typically depend on the size of the target- and therefore are very sensitive to the ed population play an important role in total population counts in each jurisdic- the financing of all subnational budgets. tion. In the case of revenue capacity, the estimates do not directly involve popula- 115. Even though it has remained tions counts but these are indirectly re- low, subnational government borrow- flected via the fact that large population ing has been increasingly used by prov- 56 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M  CHAPTER 5 inces to finance their capital spending 117. The regression estimates addi- needs. The five largest subnational gov- tionally are compared to the raw per ernments account for close to half of all inhabitant averages for each of the subnational borrowing (in the form of major budget items. In order to calcu- bank loans, Treasury loans, and bonds). late the additional cost in the provision The 2002 budget law imposes limits to of a particular service imposed by an borrowing as percent of annual capital additional migrant one can take the av- budgets. Since capital budgets tend to be erage per capita cost/expenditure in that larger in more populated jurisdictions we service. Those estimates will provide us may expect the amount of borrowing to with reasonable lower and upper bounds be positively correlated with population. of the net fiscal impact on the budgets of specific jurisdictions.52 Fiscal impact of changes in 118. One caveat to the analysis for population public expenditures is that it reflects av- erage costs rather than the marginal cost 116. The basic approach used here to of public good provision. What is known examine the fiscal implications of mi- is only the average cost (the ratio of total gration is to quantify the fiscal implica- expenditure for the good to the total pop- tions of changes in population in gen- ulation). But by using average costs as op- eral. Of course, in terms of fiscal impact posed to marginal costs we are erring on there may be differences between those the pessimistic side—making costs larg- caused by ordinary changes in popula- er that they may actually be. In Vietnam tion and those associated with migrants practically all public services are shared or and those differences are considered in concurrently provided by the central and one version of the analysis. Nevertheless, subnational governments. Therefore the the fundamental assumption is that the approach to estimating cost increases will fiscal impact of ordinary changes in pop- have to be performed for all and each of ulation provides a solid first approxima- the categories of functional expenditures tion to what may be expected in terms of as they appear in the budget. the fiscal impact associated with changes in population driven by migration. Mul- 119. The analysis of budget revenues tiple regression analysis and cross sec- reflects a complex set of pathways by tion data for 2011 (the most recent year which more population affects revenue. for which complete data are available) is Larger populations typically will gen- used to establish how the most import- erate larger tax bases and therefore we ant budget items in the expenditure and expect budget revenues to be generally revenue sides are affected by changes correlated with population. Subnational in population. These estimates provide government revenues come in two main an approximation of the average fiscal categories: (a) Revenue retained 100 per- impact of an additional migrant in the cent by local authorities which includes subnational finances in one year.51 The the Land and Housing Tax; Natural Re- analysis considers separately impacts on source Tax (except petroleum); Tax on public expenditure, revenue, and inter- Transfer of LURs; Registration Fees; Li- governmental transfers. censing Fees; Rental of Land and Water; CHAPTER 5 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M 57 Transfer of Land Use Rights; Sale of State es, and another used to estimate capital Property; and (b) Revenue shared be- spending needs across provinces. The tween central and local authorities: VAT recurrent and capital spending needs (except VAT on imports); CIT (except are aggregated to arrive at total spend- enterprises with uniform accounting); ing needs for each province. This total is Personal Income Tax; Special Consump- then subtracted from the estimated de- tion Tax on domestic goods and services; centralized revenue for each province, Gasoline and Oil Fees. The transmission which then constitutes the estimated channels from population to the size of horizontal fiscal gap. More specifically, the tax bases and eventually revenue col- the current formula to determine recur- lections are complex and different for rent spending needs (from September, different taxes. 2010) works on the basis of specific per capita financial allocation, also referred 120. Likewise, the relationship be- to as an allocation norm, for the differ- tween transfers and population is not ent functional expenditure assignments. straightforward. The system of transfers For example, for education, the criterion in Vietnam has two main components is the number of school-age children. and each of them is potentially respon- The allocation norm is multiplied by the sive to changes in population level due number of school-age in a particular ju- to the fact that population is recognized risdiction to come up with an estimate in the allocation formulas. However, this of education spending needs for that ju- responsiveness to population levels can risdiction. The formula for determining be complex. The first component, we capital allocation needs (also of 2010) have seen, is the “balancing transfers”, involve criteria in five categories, one of which are designed to address horizontal which is population. Overall, the regres- imbalances across provinces and within sion coefficients are expected to capture provinces, across districts. The second the net effects of the changes in popula- component is “targeted transfers” which tion on expenditure needs and on fiscal provide funds in support of the enhance- capacity on the two different sides of the ment of national program objectives balancing transfer formula. across subnational jurisdictions. 122. Targeted transfers are condi- 121. Balancing transfers are de- tional to the use of funds in pre-estab- signed to reduce horizontal imbalanc- lished ways. There are two types of tar- es that arise because of different reve- get programs. The first constitute a set nue capacities and expenditure needs. of 16 programs grouped under NTPs, Spending needs across provinces differ and the second are conditional transfers because of different populations in need aimed at specific provinces or types of and because of different costs of service provinces. The 16 NTPs have covered a provision (e.g., mountainous regions). wide range of objectives targeting pov- But revenue capacity is also expected to erty, education, health, livelihoods, rural increase with population as a whole. In development, culture, energy use and the case of balancing transfers, there are climate change and in most cases the al- two formulas, one used to estimate re- location of funds will be affected by the current spending needs across provinc- changes in population. 58 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M  CHAPTER 5 123. The effect of population chang- mand for local public goods.53 These es on expenditures, revenues and trans- other control variables are: population fers is estimated using a cross-section growth, provincial debt per capita (ex- data of 63 Vietnam provinces. The data cept in the borrowing regression), the are for 2011, which is the most recent urbanization rate and secondary educa- year for which data are available for all tion graduation rate. Higher population relevant separately categorized budget growth may affect both revenue and ex- items. The estimations are subject to penditure because incoming increases in some variations in the sample size be- the labor force due to migration increase cause of the different availability of cer- the tax bases, while the newborn popula- tain variables. Four sets of coefficients tion requires expenditure on health and are actually estimated. First, we use two types of expenditures. Provincial debt dependent variables: total amounts of per capita puts pressure on provincial each budget item and the per capita lev- governments to raise more revenue and el for each of those variables. While we decrease expenditure; on the other hand, are mostly interested in the coefficient if used for infrastructure it can increase estimated with total amounts as the de- expenditure in the short-term and in- pendent variable, using per capita levels crease revenue in the long-term. Urban- as the dependent variable allow us to ization rate leads to different structures find out whether particular expenditure of the tax bases, and therefore revenue items are subject to joint consumption collections. Moreover, it may affect ex- and economies of scale in production. penditures through spatial decay of The other two sets of estimates come service delivery and varying infrastruc- from running the regressions of expen- ture needs. Finally, secondary education diture on population alone without any graduation rate affects both revenue and controls and those in which other con- expenditure due to its impact on the trol variables are introduced. Because quality of labor force, their earning po- of the complexity of factors that go into tential and the consequent consumption the formula for balancing transfers, we and saving preferences. Obviously, the include as additional controls age depen- importance of control variables across dency and GDP per capita. Beyond pop- various dependent variables of revenue ulation itself, age dependency is likely to and expenditure will differ. However, it is be a major determinant of expenditure important to include all for consistency needs, and it is measured as the share of of results. population under 15 and above 65 years of age, capturing the share of non-labor 125. Results from the statistical anal- population that requires expenditure in ysis are summarized in Table 26. The services as education, health, social pro- table shows the simulated impact of an tection, etc. On the other hand, GDP per increase in the population by one person capita is likely to be a major determinant on various line items of revenue, trans- of fiscal capacity. fers, and expenditures. The simulations are carried out for each budget item for 124. The choice of other control which a statistically significant regres- variables follows the well-established sion coefficient is found, for the three literature on the determinants and de- overall categories of revenues, transfers CHAPTER 5 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M 59 and expenditures, and net overall change of 4577 thousand VND per person), an in thousands of VND. Four alternative increase in transfers of 1051 thousand sets of fiscal impacts are presented based VND and an increase in expenditures on underlying regression specification of 2282 thousand VND. The net result is with and without controls, and with and 3346 thousand VND increase in budget without interactions of all terms with the funds or budget surplus. share of migrants in the population. The protocol followed in the simulations is to 127. Many of the discussion on the use for the simulations all the statistically fiscal consequences of reforming the significant coefficients in each set of esti- residency system have focused on the mates. However, for some budget items specific costs for provincial govern- we “borrow” coefficients from the other ments involving education and health set of estimates when a specific budget services. As can be seen in Table 26, the item does not obtain a significant esti- estimates are quite consistent whether mated coefficient in the reference set but we use the regression coefficients with does in the alternative set—that is, insig- and without controls. For 2011, on aver- nificant coefficients are replaced by those age, an increase in population by one ad- of the other specification if the other one ditional person would lead to an average is significant. It is important to note that increase in expenditures in education these simulation numbers are based on and health services combined of 427 to cross-sections of all provinces for the 447 thousand VND. year 2011, so they represent an average for all provinces. 128. Columns 3 and 4 of the table present the results for the impact of 126. As expected, the results show population changes including the in- that regardless of specification, reve- teraction term with share of migrants nues, transfers, and expenditures are in the province. The estimated net total all higher in provinces with more peo- impact of a change by 1 person ranges ple. Starting with the first set of estimates from -697 thousand VND to 858 thou- based on the regression specification sand VND. The difference is mainly due without additional controls, we see in the to the larger impact of the population first column of Table 23 that an increase change on targeted transfers and the in population by one additional person smaller impact on capital expenditures would lead to an average increase in corresponding to the regression coef- revenues of 4577 thousand VND, an in- ficients of the specification with other crease in transfers of 313 thousand VND, controls compared to the specification and an increase in expenditures of 3714 without other control variables. thousand VND. The net average fiscal im- pact would be positive: a 1176 thousand 129. The net effects in this case dif- VND increase in additional resources or fer from the baseline estimates. For the budget surplus. Using the second set of case of the simulations allowing for the estimates (column 2) that account for migrant share and without other control other control variables, we find that an variables we obtain a negative net ef- increase in population of one addition- fect—or implied budget deficit -- of 697 al person leads to an increase in revenue thousand VND per person. Note that 60 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M  CHAPTER 5 this estimate is simulated on the basis of 130. An alternative approach to esti- the average share of migrant population mate costs and revenues from popula- for all provinces. Therefore, we would tion changes is to use per capita budget expect the net negative impact to be figures directly from the most recent larger in absolute terms for those prov- complete data available.54 This may inces where the migrant share is higher have the advantage of relating the esti- than the average. We would expect this mates more specifically to the circum- to be the case in the larger cities such as stances of each subnational jurisdiction. Ha Noi or Ho Chi Minh City. However, But using those data tends to ignore the we need to pay attention to the fact that potential economies of scale in the con- this negative impact appears to be driv- sumption and production of public ser- en by lower estimated values of received vices and revenue generation associated targeted transfers and larger estimated with changes in population and it may values of expenditures in capital infra- exaggerate (or undervalue) what one structure as opposed to the delivery of would expect to be “normal” or average services such as health, education or smoothed out values. social protection. The general presump- tion would appear to have been that the 131. The per capita revenues, trans- impact of migrants would be especially fers and expenditures for the top 8 rich- noticeable in this later type of expendi- est and most populous provinces are tures. Focusing exclusively on the spe- presented in Table 27 (in million VND). cific costs for provincial governments Note that this list includes all the areas involving education and health services covered by the Household Registration for the new legal residents, the estimates Survey. The richest provinces were cho- are again quite consistent whether we use sen on the basis of overall nominal GDP the regression coefficients with and with- and per capita nominal GDPAs the last out controls and also remarkably close to row in the table shows, the budgets of all those obtained under the baseline and provinces show a net fiscal balance, im- other adjusted estimates. For 2011, on plying a positive net fiscal impact of in- average, an increase in population by 1 creasing population by one per person. people would lead to an average increase in expenditures in education and health services combined of 388 to 456 thou- sand VND. CHAPTER 5 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M 61 TABLE 26 Simulation of the total impact of change in population of 1 person on each line of the budget 2011. (in thousands of VND) Basic specification Spec. w/migrant share Without With Without With controls controls controls controls (1) (2) (3) (4) REVENUE Province Revenue 100% retained 1921 1921 228 228 Province Revenue Shared 2178 2178 1523 1523 Fees and charges revenue 0 0 0 0 Grants revenue 0 0 0 0 Other revenue 7 7 3 7 Off-budget revenue 470 470 0 0 Borrowing 0 0 -5 35 Total change in Revenue: 4577 4577 1750 1793 TRANSFERS Province Balancing Transfer received 0 0 0 0 Province Targeted Transfer received 313 1051 620 1067 Total change in Transfers: 313 1051 620 1067 EXPENDITURE Capital Expenditure 2356 1116 1830 1058 Education current expenditure 200 210 224 173 Health current expenditure 247 217 232 215 Science and Tech current expenditure 19 15 15 15 Culture and Information current expenditure 36 51 44 43 Broadcast and TV current expenditure 0 0 3 3 Sports current expenditure 31 45 40 35 Social Relief current expenditure 54 57 49 49 Economic Services current expenditure 339 306 338 298 Administration current expenditure 135 85 99 84 Price Support current expenditure 155 155 96 9 Environment current expenditure 142 25 100 21 Total change in Expenditure: 3714 2282 3067 2002 NET CHANGE: 1176 3346 -697 858 Sources: Analysis using 2011 revenue, expenditure, and transfer data. The insignificant coefficients are assumed as population having 0 impact on the budget item and overall. 62 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M  CHAPTER 5 TABLE 27 Revenue, transfers and expenditure per capita of the top 8 richest and most populous provinces, 2011(in thousands of VND) Ho Chi Ha Noi Bac Ninh Can Tho Hai Da Binh Dak Minh City Phong Nang Duong Nong REVENUE (millions per capita) Province Revenue 100% retained 2066 2318 .023 521 603 6659 1412 238 Province Revenue Shared 2184 2898 2111 2608 2318 3069 1951 857 Fees and charges revenue 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Grants revenue 96 0 0 140 28 0 0 Other revenue 7 34 4 0 0 0 17 Borrowing 0 0 28 287 11 21 0 194 Off-budget revenue 803 0 279 0 692 0 147 TRANSFERS (millions per capita) Province Balancing Transfer 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2445 received Province Targeted Transfer received 274 568 311 497 608 780 380 2224 EXPENDITURE (millions per capita) Capital Expenditure 2551 2297 1296 980 854 7603 1888 1710 Education current expenditure 204 244 296 293 316 355 101 278 Health current expenditure 266 288 215 293 139 228 165 306 Science and Tech current 18 1 15 14 26 26 30 15 expenditure Culture and Information current 25 56 26 14 19 30 16 17 expenditure Broadcast and TV current 31 4 70 83 124 317 310 expenditure Sports current expenditure 18 49 4 20 26 35 13 5 Social Relief current expenditure 54 37 29 21 94 110 39 137 Economic Services current 316 389 188 50 196 249 69 265 expenditure Administration current expenditure 163 148 153 154 119 304 123 371 Price Support current expenditure 1703 55 17 237 53 0 2 Environment current expenditure 166 94 51 95 0 10 NET PER CAPITA BUDGET 1470 2165 1465 2065 1.866 2197 1268 2976 Sources: Government of Vietnam. CHAPTER 5 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M 63 132. The analysis presented here 133. The overall conclusion is that provides a considerable range of esti- it is not clear that subnational govern- mates for the net fiscal impact of one ments are subject to financial hard- additional resident. Adjusting for the ship from the arrival of migrants. This share of migrants yields a net fiscal im- is true mainly because, despite the fact pact per annum of -697 thousand VND. that migrants will bring additional ex- On the other hand the baseline estimates penditures, they will also bring directly without adjustment for migrants show and indirectly more resources though the average net fiscal impact estimated to revenues and transfers. However, in the be positive and between 1176 thousand worst-case scenario, there may be finan- VND and 3346 thousand VND per per- cial losses for the provinces that receive son per annum. The per capita budget the migrants. On average, those losses on figures for selected provinces in Table an annual basis would be -697 thousand 27 also provide similar positive net fiscal VND per person. These losses may be impact estimates of adding one addition- larger or smaller for individual provinc- al resident. es. Therefore, even though the evidence is far from being strong, some of the findings weakly support the concerns of subnational officials regarding the fiscal burdens associated with migrants. 64 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M  CHAPTER 6 Conclusions and policy directions 6 CHAPTERS There are two reasons to consider reform of the ho khau system. First, the barriers temporary registrants face to services and public employment generate social costs and are unfair. This is of particular concern for barriers that impact children—such as those related to health insurance and education—as they may limit the possibili- ties for intergenerational mobility. Second, the system may generate economic costs through a variety of channels. In light of these issues, the government could use one of two approaches to making the system less restrictive. The government has already enacted or considered elements of both approaches. The first is to reduce the obsta- cles to obtaining permanent registration. The second is to reduce differences in service access between those with permanent and temporary access. Additionally, the gov- ernment has already begun the gradual transition to a national population database and citizen identification card system, which could ultimately supplant the principal functions of the existing registration system. 134. Evidence presented in this re- 135. Despite reforms, the system re- port shows that the force of the ho khau mains a source of inequality of oppor- system has waned over time. A series of tunity. Temporary registrants face some reforms in recent years have lessened the challenges in enrolling their children in force of the system, in particular by eas- public school, particularly at the pre- ing the path to temporary registration. school level, and evidence suggests that Notably, Vietnam has come much far- low enrollment of temporary registrants ther than China in reform of its house- at the upper secondary level is in part hold registration system. While histori- due to lower priority they have for school cally the systems were similar, Vietnam’s places. There are gaps in health insur- ho khau is now less of a barrier to service ance access by registration status, partic- access and opportunity than China’s huk- ularly for young children, and some tem- ou. (See Box 5 for a description of China’s porary registrants pay much higher fees system and steps towards reform.) for health care. Additionally, although CHAPTER 6 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M 65 private labor market discrimination by a substantial period with the challenges registration status has faded, temporary associated with temporary status. Fur- registrants are still largely barred from thermore, the national government has public sector jobs. Finally, those without explicitly recognized the power of city permanent status face challenges with governments to create their own residen- basic interactions with the government cy rules, and such rules—particularly re- such as registering a motorcycle. quirements of minimum living space— have been used to limit eligibility for 136. Acquiring permanent registra- residency. As a result, many people live tion status remains difficult. The basic with temporary status for several years; requirement of two years of continuous 40 percent of temporary registrants in residency (three in Ha Noi) means that the HRS have lived in their current prov- new arrivals must live at a minimum for ince for more than five years. BOX 5 Hukou reform in China Ho khau is modeled chiefly after China’s huk- the urban share of the population, from 20 per- ou system, which was established in 1958 to cent in 1960 to 18 percent in 1978. control the movement of population. Despite Reforms in the past three decades have some reforms, hukou remains quite rigid and weakened the restrictions imposed by huk- is a much greater restriction on migration and ou. China relaxed controls in the 1980s and service access than ho khau. Hukou divides encouraged rural to urban migration in 1990s. the urban and rural populations into two sub- A policy promulgated in 2001 allows people groups via designation as either “agricultural” in small towns to apply for local hukou if they or “non-agricultural” residents. Citizens obtain have legally stable employment, a stable source their hukou status through a registration pro- of income, and a stable residence. In 2006 the cess administered by local authorities based State Council issued a policy document regard- on place of residence and family relationship. ing social services of rural migrant workers in Each household is given a household registra- cities. This document explicitly linked access to tion booklet which records each individual’s services with the goal of facilitating integration name, sex, date of birth, marital status, occu- of migrants into cities. Obtaining local hukou pation, hukou status (agricultural vs. non-agri- is more difficult in larger cities than in towns cultural hukou), family relationship, and home and smaller cities. address. Various local hukou reforms have been pi- In the era of planned economy the hukou loted. These pilots include (i) unified hukou system, combined with the people’s commune registration, (ii) establishment of a parallel and urban food ration systems, prohibited free residence permit system, delinking access to mobility between rural and urban areas and basic services for migrants from hukou status across regions. The hukou system in combina- itself in some large cities and provinces, such tion with other policies impeded urbanization as Chengdu, Chongqing, Guangdong, Jiangsu, in this period: China actually saw a decline in Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Zhejiang to provide 66 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M  CHAPTER 6 social services linked to these permits, (iii) a registration system that can effectively support Guangdong-specific pilot consisting of a point the management of population migration and system to manage hukou conversion of rural public services and convert 100 million agri- migrants, and (iv) localized hukou conversion cultural population into urban residents by with or without exchange of rural and urban 2020. The key policy measures include (i) in- entitlements. Chongqing required the so- troducing a unified urban and rural household called “exchanging three rural clothes for five registration system, (ii) establishing the resi- urban clothes” policy: the “rural clothes” being dence permit system, and (iii) accelerating the homestead land, farm land, and contracted for- development of a national population informa- est land, while the “urban clothes” are pension, tion database to provide essential information medical insurance, housing, employment, and for policy making. In the meantime, fiscal, so- education. A similar localized hukou conver- cial and land policy reforms have been taken sion pilot in Chengdu did not require the ex- to promote the equality of basic public services change of rural and urban entitlements (DRC between rural and urban areas and across re- and World Bank, 2013). Chongqing later gave gions, including compulsory education, em- up the exchange between rural and urban en- ployment services, pension, health, housing titlements. and social services, and to guarantee land use In recent years, the central government has rights of rural farmers when they are converted accelerated the pace of hukou reform. In 2011, into urban residents. the State Council announced hukou reform as In 2015, the State Council promulgated the a key component of a coordinated set of ur- Regulation of the Residence Permit System, ban and rural reforms and took several steps, which took effect at the beginning of 2016. Per- including issuing hukou system reform guide- mit holders have the rights and enjoy equitable lines linked to the city’s administrative level, access to public services in cities (including requesting institutions to improve registration compulsory education, employment services, of temporary populations in the cities, and pension and social insurance, health, culture calling for a gradual rollout of the residence and sports, legal assistance and services, and permit system (Wang, et. al., 2013). In 2014, others). The regulation describes the condi- the State Council issued a New-Type Urban- tions of conversion of permit holders into local ization Plan to orderly manage rural to urban residents. It liberalizes the settlement of small migration and proposed a numerical target cities and recommends the introduction of a of 100 million long-term rural migrants to be point system in large and mega cities such as converted to urban hukou holders by 2020. In Shanghai, Beijing, and Tianjin. By the end of the meantime, the Chinese Ministry of Public January 2016, 29 provinces had introduced the Security is formulating a roadmap for hukou residence permit system. With hukou reform, reform, aiming to establish a newly population the proportion of urban population in China registration system by 2020 ((World Bank and reached 56% in 2015. However, the proportion DRC, 2014). of the urban population with local hukou is In 2014, the State Council issued Opinions only 37%. According to the new Urbanization on Further Promoting the Household Regis- Plan, by 2020 China aims to have 60% urban tration System Reform, outlining a longer term population, and 45% urban population with objective of hukou reform: establishing an local hukou by 2020. orderly and people-centered new household CHAPTER 6 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M 67 137. The first reason to consider re- registrants could discourage them from form of the ho khau system is that the formalizing businesses. Relatively few barriers temporary registrants face to temporary registrants work are self-em- services and public employment are ployed. This may reflect the greater op- unfair and create social costs. Migrants portunities they face in wage employ- move to areas of prosperity in search ment, which draws them to the city in of better lives, and the ho khau system the first place. But it may also reflect limits their opportunities. This is of par- challenges they face in self-employment. ticular concern for barriers that impact Additionally, as the interviews in the children—such as those related to health HKQS make clear, the fact that tempo- insurance and education—as they may rary registrants needs to return to their limit the possibilities for intergenera- place of origin for many procedures cre- tional mobility. ates a substantial time and travel cost burden. Another potential cost comes 138. The second reason to consider from the fact that temporary registrant reform of the ho khau system is that the households may leave children with rel- system creates economic costs. Such atives in their hometowns, where they costs can take several forms. By effec- have greater school access. This phenom- tively increasing the costs of moving enon of “left behind children” has been to cities, the ho khau decreases migra- found to have negative implications for tion, providing a brake on the country’s children in China and could be exam- structural transformation and econom- ined in future work on Vietnam. ic growth. Given that large numbers of migrants continue to move to Vietnam’s 140. Ho khau continues to exist for large cities, it is clear that ho khau is not several reasons. One reason is a desire a binding constraint for migration over- to limit migration, rooted in city gov- all, but nonetheless it is likely that it dis- ernment concerns about the burden of courages some people from migrating. It providing and paying for services for an may particularly discourage migration influx of migrants. A second is a sense by ethnic minorities, who are less likely that the system is used as an instrument to have the social networks which would of the public security apparatus. A third help them negotiate the obstacles created reason is that the system is used admin- by ho khau. Relative to the larger forces istratively to define what constitutes a driving Vietnam’s economy, the overall household, such as for purposes of so- impact of the ho khau system is likely to cial protection benefits and purchase of be small. Nonetheless, to maximize its household health insurance. A final rea- growth potential the country should be son is historical momentum: problems encouraging urbanization rather than with the system are recognized in the retaining barriers intended to limit the press, public debates, and the responses arrival of new migrants. to questions on attitudes in the HRS, but there is also a reluctance to make chang- 139. Further economic and social es, for lack of a clear sense of alternatives. costs may occur through other chan- nels. The limited access to government 141. One path to reform of the sys- paperwork procedures for temporary tem is to reduce obstacles to obtaining 68 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M  CHAPTER 6 permanent registration. If permanent ments for public employment could be status could be obtained quickly at low eliminated, and government procedures cost, it would no longer create barriers like registration of a motorcycle could be to service access. The 2006 Law on Resi- made available explicitly for temporary dence took a large step in this direction, registrants. The government has already by reducing the barriers to permanent taken substantial steps in this direction, registration, and cutting the required pe- notably through the Law on Civil Sta- riod of residence from three years to one tus, which makes it possible for people year. However, 2013 changes to the law to register for birth and marriage certi­ substantially backtracked on this reform, ficates wherever they live, regardless of by increasing the residency requirement registration status. to two years and explicitly recognizing the authority of local authorities to set 143. These two paths are not mutu- their own residency policies. More re- ally exclusive. Permanent registration strictive requirements for obtaining per- can be made easier to obtain while at manent residence have been implement- the same time the service gaps between ed in Da Nang and for Ha Noi under the temporary and permanent registrants Capital City Law. Obstacles to service can be closed. Indeed the government access could be reduced by shortening has already taken substantial steps along (or eliminating) the time period required both paths. As the reforms are deepened, before residents can apply for perma- the system can still function as a tool for nent status as well as limiting the set of public security and administrative iden- requirements that city governments can tification of household membership. impose on permanent status applicants. 144. The government has also taken 142. A second path to reform is to the initial steps towards an alternative eliminate differences in service access system which could ultimately supplant between those with permanent and ho khau. Under the Law on Civil status temporary registration. This could be which came into effect at the beginning partially accomplished through a num- of 2016, the government is establishing ber of service-specific measures along a national population database and a with clarification and enforcement of ex- citizen identification card with a citizen isting rules. The designation of a health identification number linked to the da- facility could be fully decoupled from tabase. The national database will hold residency, so that temporary registrants basic information on each individual could choose facilities where they live. including gender, ethnicity, and marital Free provision of insurance to children status. It will also include place of perma- under 6 regardless of registration status nent registration as well as current res- could be better enforced. When the na- idence.55 Public officials have described tional budget has provided a full or par- a gradual expansion of the system, with tial subsidy for the payment of health in- citizen identification cards linked to surance (as is the case for poor, children, the national database largely replacing near poor and pupils), the money could other administrative papers such as the follow the person to their temporary res- ho khau booklet. This system would fa- idence. Permanent registration require- cilitate identification for the purpose CHAPTER 6 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M 69 of many different types of government described above, the new system could programs. While not a reform to the help reduce the administrative burden household registration system per se, in on both the government and citizens of tandem with the two other reform paths household registration. 70 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M  NOTES Notes 1. Hardy (2001) porary registrants. 2. Le Bach Duong (1998), as quoted in 12. There are other differences between Hardy (2001). the two figures besides time period. 3. Li Tana (1996), as quoted in Hardy Most importantly, the 2015 data is (2001) based on data from five provinces 4. Based on analysis of the National while the 2009 data is for Ha Noi Database for Legal Documents. and Ho Chi Minh City only. Also, 5. United Nations (2010). Internal Mi- the 2009 questionnaire differed in gration: Opportunities and Chal- the way it treated registration, so the lenges for Socio-economic Devel- match between registration catego- opment in Viet Nam ries over time is imperfect. 6. Ministry of Public Security (2012). 13. Using national data and controlling On the need of revising the 2006 for characteristics and location, De- Law on Residence, submitted to mombynes and Testaverde (2016) the National Assembly. http:// find a gender wage gap of 11-14%. duthaoonline.quochoi.vn/DuThao/ 14. Oxfam and Action Aid (2010). Lists/DT_DUTHAO_LUAT/View_ 15. Duong and Linh (2010). Detail.aspx?ItemID=694&TabIn- 16. Cameron (2012). dex=2&TaiLieuID=1090 17. Ministry of Health and Health Part- 7. Pincus and Sender (2008) nership Group (2015) 8. Authors’ estimates based on VHLSS 18. ActionAid Vietnm (2014), Duong microdata and Linh (2010) 9. Duong and Linh (2011). This study 19. These provisions are from Article 1 had weaknesses. First, the study us- of the 2004 Electricity Law ing the 2008 data does not define the 20. Data calculated from the web portal sampling approach, and it appears baomoi.com which collects articles unlikely that the resulting sample from different media sources is representative of those without 21. Reporters Without Borders (2014) permanent registration status as a 22. Nhan dan (2006) whole. Second, the study does not 23. Tuoi tre (2006) provide any comparison group for 24. Cong An Nhan dan (2006a) the temporary migrant population 25. Cong An Nhan dan (2006b). to justify claims that they are rela- 26. Tuoi tre (2013). tively disadvantaged. 27. Karis (2013). 10. Urban Poverty Assessment in Ha 28. Ha Noi Moi (2012). Noi and Ho Chi Minh City (2010) 29. Thanh Nien (2014). 11. However, the survey did not capture 30. Lao dong (2014) workers living on construction sites, 31. VnExpress (2014) who may be more likely to be tem- 32. Tuoi tre (2014a) NOTES V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M 71 33. Tuoi tre (2014b) 49. See, for example, Hong and McLar- 34. Nguoi Lao dong (2014) en (2015) for a general discussion 35. Vietnamnet (2006) and findings of how immigrants can 36. VnExpress (2006) expand economic and tax bases. 37. Nguoi lao dong (2013) 50 Vietnam has a relatively complex 38. Vo Thuong (2015) vertical structure of government 39. Thanh nien (2006) with three tiers of subnational gov- 40. Thanh nien (2006) ernments (provinces, districts and 41. Nhân dân (2006b) communes). Our focus is on the 42. Duong et al (2011) provincial budgets and assume that 43. Tuoi tre (2013) the provinces will compensate dis- 44. Nguyen Thi Huong (2014) tricts and communes as necessary. 45. VnExpress (2012) 51. Note that this analysis is of a static 46. Ha Noi Moi (2012) nature, meaning that we aim at de- 47. Taylor (2011) riving costs and benefits in the “next 48. Similar concerns have been raised fiscal year” as opposed to being dy- about reforming the hukou system namic estimating costs and benefits in China. World Bank and the DRC say over the life cycle of the poten- (2012) estimates—also reported in tial unregistered workers. Melander and Pelikanova (2013)- 52. The estimates using regression anal- - that the average lifetime cost of ysis with cross section allow for providing urban social services to taking into account both the level a typical migrant worker, including of crowding in consumption and family members would be about the potential economies of scale in 80,000 yuan (13,000 USD in 2010 the production and delivery of the prices) or an annual cost of 2,500 different public services. The use of yuan (406 USD) a year per person. cross section for all jurisdictions on But these studies also note that the a national scale to estimate expen- annual output of each unregistered diture functions in terms of popu- worker is likely to be far larger– pos- lation and other covariates, for the sibly even several dozen times – the most important expenditure cate- 2,500 yuan average cost of urban gories, allows to take into account social services. Therefore, this indi- crowding (or ‘joint-ness’) in con- cates that the proper calculation of sumption and economies of scale net costs should also include the po- in production. In that sense, the tential additional revenues that may regression approach provides lower be accruing to local governments bound and likely more accurate es- from larger tax bases and possibly timates of changes in population by transfers. service category etc. while the sim- 72 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M  NOTES ple averages provide us with what These studies use micro data from we can call an upper bound of those the Census office in the US and di- estimates. vide the population between “na- 53. See, for example, Bergstom and tives” and “immigrants” and then Goodman (1973) and Marti- use the estimates of services used nez-Vazquez (1979). The estima- by -- and taxes paid by—prior im- tions for revenue and transfers are migrants to calculate the net fiscal carried out in the same manner, balance for the “new immigrants” since both GDP per capita and who are assumed to be identical to population are the important de- the existing immigrants. The cal- terminants of revenue from tax and culations are based on simple per transfers. capita or per client averages for the 54. There is precedent in the literature existing immigrants but based on for using average or per capita fig- many assumptions about access to ures in the local budgets to approx- services, crowding of public goods, imate the fiscal impact associated etc. with new immigrants. For example 55. Thu Vien Phap Luat (2016) for the United States there are sever- 56. The weights are constructed by al studies that have appeared in the MDRI with support and guidance National Academy Press, for exam- from Kristen Himelein, Senior ple Smith and Edmonston (1997). Economist at the World Bank BIBLIOGRAPHY V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M 73 Bibliography ActionAid Vietnam (AAV). 2014. 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No. 36/2013/QH13 cial evils, fire and domestic violence. dated June 20, 2006 of the National http://thuvienphapluat.vn/archive/ Assembly on amendments to the Law Nghi-dinh-167-2013-ND-CP-xu- on residence takes effect from Janu- phat-vi-pham-hanh-chinh-an-ninh- ary 1, 2014.http://thuvienphapluat. an-toan-xa-hoi-phong-chua-chay- vn/archive/Van-ban-hop-nhat-03- vb213552.aspx VBHN-VPQH-nam-2013-Luat-cu- Decree No. 31/2014/NĐ-CP of Govern- tru-vb203638.aspx ment dated April 18,2014 detailing Resolution No. 11/2013/NQ-HĐND of and guiding the implementation Ha Noi City People’s Council dated of a number of articles of the Law on July 17, 2013 regulating on average Residence. http://vbpl.vn/tw/Pages/ residence area for urban rental house vbpq-toanvan.aspx?ItemID=34848 for citizen to register permanent resi- Decree No. 71/2010/NĐ-CP of Gov- dence in Ha Noi urban. (Item b Clause ernment dated June 23, 2010detail- 4 Articl 19 of Capital Law). http:// ing and guiding the implementa- thuvienphapluat.vn/archive/Nghi- tion of the Law on Housing. http:// quyet-11-2013-NQ-HDND-dien- www.moj.gov.vn/vbpq/Lists/Vn%20 tich-o-binh-quan-dang-ky-thuong- bn%20php%20lut/View_Detail.aspx- tru-Ha-Noi-vb202779.aspx ?ItemID=25426 Resolution No. 18/2014/NQ-HĐND Law on the Capital City. No. 25/2012/ Da Nang City People’s Council dated QH13 of the National Assembly 5/12/2014 regulating on average resi- passed on November 21, 2012 with dence area when settling registration effect from July 1, 2013. http://www. of permanent residing legally in place chinhphu.vn/portal/page/portal/ in due rent, borrow, at home in Can chinhphu/hethongvanban?class_ thơ city. http://thuvienphapluat.vn/ id=1&mode=detail&document_ archive/Nghi-quyet-18-2014-NQ- id=164931 HDND-dien-tich-nha-o-khi-thuong- Law on Health Insurance. No. 46/2014/ tru-vao-cho-o-do-thue-muon-o- QH13 dated June 13, 2014. http://thu- nho-tai-Can-Tho-vb261653.aspx vienphapluat.vn/archive/Luat-Bao- Resolution No. 48/2013/NQ-HĐND of hiem-y-te-sua-doi-2014-vb238506. Da nang City People’s Council dated aspx 12/12/2013 regulating on average res- Law on Housing 2005. No. 56/2005/ idence area when settling registration QH11 dated November29, 2005 takes of permanent residing legally in place effect from July 1, 2006.http://www. in due rent, borrow, at home in Da chinhphu.vn/portal/page/portal/ nang city. http://www.udn.vn/files/ chinhphu/hethongvanban?class_ vanban/1155.pdf id=1&mode=detail&document_ Resolution No.53/2013/NQ-HĐND of id=29935 Da Nang City People’s Council dat- Law on Residence 2006. No. 81/2006/ ed December 13, 2013 on tasks in QH1 dated November 29, 2006 2014. http://thuvienphapluat.vn/ar- takes effect from July 1, 2007.http:// chive/Nghi-quyet-53-2013-NQ-HD- www.moj.gov.vn/vbpq/Lists/Vn%20 ND-nhiem-vu-nam-2014-Da-Nang- bn%20php%20lut/View_Detail.aspx- vb221763.aspx BIBLIOGRAPHY V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M 81 Annexes ANNEX 1: Sampling and Using these lists, selection of survey households was stratified at the EA level Survey Weight Calculations to ensure a substantial surveyed popula- for the 2015 Household tion of households without permanent Registration Survey registration. In each EA random selec- tion was conducted of 12 households with temporary registration status and Sampling for the Household Registration 8 households with permanent registra- Survey was conducted in two stages. The tion status. For EAs where the number of two stages were selection of 250 enumer- temporary registration households was ation areas (50 EAs in each of 5 provinc- less than 12, all of the temporary regis- es) and then selection of 20 households tration households were selected and ad- in each selected EA, resulting in a total ditional permanent registration house- sample size of 5000 households. The EAs holds were selected to ensure that each were selected using Probability Propor- EA had 20 survey households. Sampling tional to Size (PPS) method based on the weights were calculated taking into the square number of migrants in each EA, account the selection rules for the first with the aim to increase the probability of and second stages of the survey. being selected for EAs with higher num- Data collection was conducted over a ber of migrants. “Migrants” were defined period of 5 weeks using 39 teams of enu- using the census data as those who lived merators (3 enumerators/team) using in a different province five years previous computer-assisted personal interviewing to the census. The 2009 Population Cen- and electronic data entry in the field us- sus data was used as the sample frame ing tablet devices. To ensure the quality of for the selection of EAs. To make sure the data collected, enumerators were su- the sampling frame was accurate and up pervised through quality control mecha- to date, EA leaders of the sampled EAs nisms including direct supervision at the were asked to collection information of all field, random recording, GPS checking households regardless of registration sta- and daily data checking and enumerator tus at their ward a month before the actual performance evaluation. fieldwork. Information collected include Survey weights were calculated based name of head of household, address, gen- on the probability of selection56. First, the der, age of household’s head, household probability of selection of each selected EA phone number, residence registration sta- was calculated. The formula is as follows: tus of household, and place of their regis- tration 5 years ago. All households on the resulting lists were found to have either temporary or permanent registration in their current place of residence. 82 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M  ANNEXES Where: Probability of being selected for perma- is the probability of EA j in pro­ nent registrant households at EA level: vince i to be selected in the sample is the number of migrant house- holds in EA j in province i, accord- ing to Population Census 2009 is the total number of migrant households in province i, accord- ing to Population Census 2009 Where: Second, the probability of a household is the probability of permanent being selected within an EA (conditional registrant household p in EA j be- on the EA being part of the sample) was ing selected in the sample calculated. The fomula is as follows - is the number of permanent regis- Probability of being selected for trant households in EA j selected non-permanent registrant house- for the survey holds at EA level: is the total number of permanent registrant households in EA j at the time of the survey Therefore, weight for non-permanent registrant household is: Where: is the probability of non-perma- nent registrant household m in EA j being selected in the sample is the number of non-permanent And weight for permanent registrant registrant households in EA j household is: ted for the survey selec­ is the total number of non-perma- nent registrant households in EA j at the time of the survey ANNEXES V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M 83 ANNEX 2: Education Regression Tables TABLE A1 Regressions for School Enrollment Ages 3-5 Ages 6-10 Ages 11-14 Ages 15-17 -0.0165 -0.00450 -0.0984*** -0.368*** Short-term residence (0.0919) (0.0311) (0.0169) (0.102) 0.0534 -0.00914 -0.0499*** -0.161*** Long-term residence (0.0563) (0.0162) (0.0104) (0.0431) 0.216*** 0.0504*** -0.0235*** -0.0914*** Age (0.0255) (0.0145) (0.00490) (0.0203) -0.0174 0.00666 -0.00682 0.00164 Gender (male=1, female=0) (0.0579) (0.0220) (0.0126) (0.0510) -0.148* -0.0508** -0.000443 0.0695 Ethnic minorities (Ethnic minorities=1, Kinh=0) (0.0897) (0.0237) (0.0226) (0.0621) 0.0567 -0.0125 0.00126 0.0391 Gender of household head (male=1, female=0) (0.0431) (0.0182) (0.0102) (0.0402) -0.00296 0.000790 0.00177* 5.05e-05 Age of household head (0.00276) (0.000809) (0.00107) (0.00317) -0.0888 0.0236 0.0537*** 0.0825 Head completed primary degree (0.0840) (0.0251) (0.0116) (0.0522) 0.109 -0.0121 0.0375*** 0.193*** Head completed lower-secondary degree (0.0909) (0.0207) (0.0112) (0.0505) 0.0466 0.00134 0.0415** 0.219*** Head completed upper-secondary degree (0.0852) (0.0260) (0.0165) (0.0591) 0.140 0.00896 0.0154 0.369*** Head completed college (0.0951) (0.0274) (0.0136) (0.103) 0.144 0.0213 Head completed university and above (0.0893) (0.0246) 0.00524 0.00537 -0.0198*** -0.00379 Household size (0.0137) (0.00403) (0.00380) (0.0148) -0.332* 0.0556 0.0172 0.169 Proportion of children in household (0.198) (0.0651) (0.0378) (0.151) -0.692*** -0.0864 -0.461* Proportion of elderly in household (0.244) (0.0959) (0.278) -0.0829 -0.0817 0.0774** -0.128 Proportion of male member (0.187) (0.0708) (0.0385) (0.126) -0.146 0.0244 -0.0147 -0.0393 Classified as the poor by local authority (0.112) (0.0198) (0.0181) (0.0398) 0.0243 0.00221 0.0178** 0.0983** Urban areas (urban=1, rural=0) (0.0590) (0.0188) (0.00874) (0.0434) 0.103 -0.0226 0.0265 0.141** Ha Noi (0.0719) (0.0215) (0.0250) (0.0552) 0.103 -0.00720 -0.0164 0.135* Da Nang (0.0749) (0.0225) (0.0223) (0.0719) 0.0376 -0.0333 0.00160 -0.0144 HCM city (0.0817) (0.0248) (0.0168) (0.0505) 0.00946 -0.0124 -0.0291 0.0213 Binh Duong (0.0919) (0.0230) (0.0191) (0.0532) -0.0272 0.0163* -0.00911 -0.0137 Log of per capita income (0.0364) (0.00865) (0.00813) (0.0205) Observations 963 1,452 715 564 R-squared 0.184 0.300 0.614 0.475 Figures shown are marginal effects from probit regressions. Robust standard errors in parentheses, *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1 84 V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M  ANNEXES ANNEX 3: Health Regression Tables TABLE A2 Regressions for Health Insurance Ages 0-5 Ages 6-14 Ages 15+ -0.0188 -0.0760*** -0.0655** Short-term residence (0.0572) (0.0266) (0.0300) -0.0716* -0.0127 -0.0393 Long-term residence (0.0381) (0.0154) (0.0251) 0.0458 0.122*** -0.0211*** Age (0.0311) (0.0296) (0.00286) -0.00615 -0.00610*** 0.000245*** Age squared (0.00586) (0.00149) (3.67e-05) 0.0214 -0.00696 -0.0226** Gender (male=1, female=0) (0.0412) (0.0168) (0.0111) -0.0531 0.0428 0.132*** Ethnic minorities (Ethnic minorities=1, Kinh=0) (0.0666) (0.0289) (0.0450) 0.0341 -0.0290** 9.41e-05 Gender of household head (male=1, female=0) (0.0333) (0.0138) (0.0183) 0.000755 0.00139 0.00145 Age of household head (0.00214) (0.000878) (0.00101) -0.0567 0.00835 0.00800 Head completed primary degree (0.0477) (0.0182) (0.0283) 0.0437 0.0265 0.0527* Head completed lower-secondary degree (0.0502) (0.0193) (0.0291) 0.0496 0.0278 0.167*** Head completed upper-secondary degree (0.0564) (0.0207) (0.0338) 0.0821 0.0223 0.267*** Head completed college (0.0629) (0.0272) (0.0379) -0.00165 0.0390 0.261*** Head completed university and above (0.0598) (0.0240) (0.0361) -0.00335 0.00374 -0.0111 Household size (0.0115) (0.00465) (0.00760) -0.251* 0.105* -0.138*** Proportion of children in household (0.130) (0.0622) (0.0482) 0.292 -0.000431 0.0923 Proportion of elderly in household (0.265) (0.115) (0.0729) -0.0149 0.0614 -0.0398 Proportion of male member (0.118) (0.0561) (0.0375) 0.0734 -0.000836 0.0895** Classified as the poor by local authority (0.0518) (0.0351) (0.0411) -0.0157 0.0161 0.0185 Log of per capita income (0.0182) (0.0112) (0.0122) 0.00357 -0.000269 0.0412** Urban areas (urban=1, rural=0) (0.0295) (0.0148) (0.0193) 0.139*** 0.0915*** 0.00139 Ha Noi (0.0421) (0.0237) (0.0309) 0.215*** 0.207*** 0.168*** Da Nang (0.0592) (0.0448) (0.0338) -0.00745 0.0405** -0.00398 HCM City (0.0450) (0.0205) (0.0305) 0.00568 0.0420* 0.0962*** Binh Duong (0.0474) (0.0241) (0.0349) Observations 1,824 2,359 13,042 *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1 ANNEXES V I E T N A M ’ S H O U S E H O L D R E G I S T R AT I O N S Y S T E M 85 ANNEX 4: Social Protection Regression Tables TABLE A3 Regressions for Poor Status (1) (2) -0.0309** Long term temporary (0.0129) -0.00897 Short term temporary (0.0152) Any temporary -0.0222* (0.0117) Log per capita income -0.0203*** -0.0200*** (0.00408) (0.00407) Urban -0.0136 -0.0138 (0.00854) (0.00871) Dak Nong 0.0877*** 0.0880*** (0.0110) (0.0110) Da Nang 0.0376*** 0.0375*** (0.0109) (0.0109) Ho Chi Minh City 0.0302*** 0.0313*** (0.0107) (0.0109) Binh Duong 0.0391*** 0.0363*** Observations 5,000 5,000 Standard errors in parentheses *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1 VIETNAM LAYWERS ASSOCIATION Hong Duc Publishing House - Add: 65 Trang Thi street, Hoan Kiem District, Ha Noi - Email: nhaxuatbanhongduc@yahoo.com - Tel: 04.3 9260024 – Fax: 04.3 9260031 Publishing responsible: BUI VIET BAC, Director Content responsible: LY BA TOAN, Chief of Editor Editor: NGUYEN PHUONG MAI Cover and Layout: Hong Duc Publishing House Associate partner THE WORLD BANK IN VIETNAM Add: 63 Ly Thai To, Ha Noi, Vietnam Print 200 copies, size 20,5cm x 26,5cm At Vietnam Book Printing Joint Stock Company Add: 22B Hai Ba Trung, Hanoi Publishing permit: 1179/QĐ-NXBHĐ Publishing registration plan: 1638-2016/CXBIPH/05-30HĐ ISBN: 978-604-948-153-6 Compeleted and archived in 2016