Impacts of Rural - Urban Migration on Rural Household Living Standards in Vietnam

Phuong Pham, Pennsylvania State University
Thuy Ha, National Centre for Socio-Economic Information and Forecast

This study uses data from the Vietnam Household Living Standards Survey 2006 and 2008 (VHLSS) to examine the impact of rural-urban (RU) migration on household living standards ?n the place of origin. Three different statistical techniques are used to examine the impact of RU: descriptive statistics, t-tests, and OLS regression. Findings indicate that households that had RU migrants in 2008 were a little better off than those without a migrant. Second, households that decided to have someone migrate to urban areas had higher per capita income than what they had two years before in 2006. Third, urban-rural remittances did impact the rural household’s total income and per capita income positively in the place of origin. Findings from this study suggest that policies should ensure all migrants have information and rights in wherever they move to and reduce the gap in living standards between the two areas by boosting rural development.