The Children of Migrants and Their Schooling

Abstract

Many migrants coming to cities seeking better employment opportunities either leave their children behind in the home village or have very little time to care for them due to long working hours. The impact of migration on the wellbeing of families and children remains complex. Previous evidence suggests the children of migrants are not adequately cared for, with potentially negative effects on education and health outcomes, while income from migrant work is essential to finance children’s education, nutrition and medical care. This chapter fills some of the gaps in our understanding of the relationship between mobility, employment and the wellbeing of children of migrants in Vietnam—in particular, their education—based on results from the Vietnam Rural–Urban Migration Survey 2013.

This chapter was originally prepared for the Vietnam Rural–Urban Migration Conference in Hanoi (January 2015). We review some of the policies and studies on migrants and children and present some descriptive results on the education of migrants’ children from the Vietnam Rural–Urban Migration Survey (VRUMS), conducted by Australian National University and Central Institute for Economic Management (CIEM) in 2013. I am grateful to Tran Thi Hang (MPI), Conor Hughes (NBER) and Uyen Chau (UC Berkeley) for their helpful research assistance. All errors are mine.

Appendices

Appendices

1.1 Appendix 1: 2013 Law on Residence—Revisions from 2007

In June 2013, the revised Law on Residence and Decree 35/2014/TT-BCA made some revisions to household registration in these municipalities.

Article 20. Conditions for permanent residence registration in municipalities.

Citizens falling into one of the cases below are eligible for permanent residence registration in municipalities:

• 1. The citizen must have a lawful residence and have temporarily resided for at least 1 year when registering in a district [huyen] or town [thi xa] of a municipality, or for at least 2 years when registering in a district [quan] of a municipality;

  Before 2013: ‘Having lawful domiciles and having temporarily resided for 1 year or more in the cities.’

• 2. The citizen is accepted by a holder of the household registration book in one of the cases below:

  • (a) A wife moves in with her husband; a husband moves in with his wife; a child moves in with parent; a parent moves in with children;

  • (b) A person at a retirement age, a retired person or unemployed person that moves in with his or her brother or sister;

  • (c) A disabled person, a person incapable of working, a person who has mental illness or other illness that causes loss of awareness or the ability to control behaviours, moves in with his or her brother, sister, aunt, uncle, or guardian;

  • (d) A parentless juvenile, or a juvenile whose parents are not able to provide for them, moves in with his or her grandparent, brother, sister, aunt, uncle, or guardian;

  • (e) A single adult moves in with his or her grandparent, brother, sister, aunt, or uncle;

  • (f) A grandparent moves in with his or her grandchildren.

• 3. A citizen who is sent to or employed by an organisation that is paid by the state budget, or works under an indefinite contract, and has a lawful residence;

• 4. A citizen who registered a permanent residence in a municipality and returns to his or her legal residence;

• 5. The people who fall into the cases in Clauses 1, 3, and 4 of this Article register their legal residence that is rented or lent by another organisation or individual must satisfy the conditions below:

  • (a) The average area conforms with the regulations of the People’s Council of the city;

  • (b) The conformity of average area is certified by the People’s Committee of the commune or town;

  • (c) The renter or lender makes a written agreement;

• 6. Permanent residence registration in Hanoi shall comply with Clause 4 Article 19 of the Law on the Capital.

  Before: There were no Clauses 5, 6 or details in Clauses 2, 3, 4.

Article 23. Change of places of permanent residence registration in case of change of lawful domiciles

Persons who have already registered their permanent residence but change their lawful domiciles shall, within 12 months after their movement to the new lawful domiciles, carry out procedures to change their registered places of permanent residence.

Before: Persons who have already registered their permanent residence but change their lawful domiciles shall, within 24 months after their movement to the new lawful domiciles, carry out procedures to change their registered places of permanent residence.

Article 30. Temporary residence registration

4. Temporary residence books granted to households or individuals having registered their temporary residence are valid for a maximum of 24 months. Within 30 days before the expiry date, citizens shall apply for the extension at the Police Department that issued the temporary residence book.

Before: Temporary residence books granted to households or individuals having registered their temporary residence are valid for an unspecified term for determination of citizens’ temporary residence places.

Table 12 OLS regression on children’s school attendance and spending on schooling

1.2 Appendix 2: Decree 35 on the Enforcement of the 2013 Law on Residence

Following the 2013 Revised Law on Residence that went into effect on 1 January 2014, starting from 28 October 2014, Decree 35/2014/TT-BCA specified the enforcement of the revised Law on Residence and Decree 31/2014/ND-CP officially went into force to replace Circular 52/2010/TT-BCA in 2010. The changes in Decree 52 that replaced the previous Decree 34 include:

• 1. New requirements on the minimum floor area.

  Decree 52: For rented, borrowed houses, or shared shelter in Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City, it must be clearly specified in the rental, borrowed, or sharing contract that the minimum floor space per person is 5 sq. m. The definition of minimum floor space must be understood and implemented according to the Law on Housing.

  Decree 35 removes the 5 m² per person requirement, and instead requires that ‘the average living area must comply with the requirements of the municipalities’.

• 2. Removal of requirement to show lawful domiciles for relatives living together, or handicapped, mentally disordered persons. Instead, they must maintain lawful papers on the relationships with the People’s Committee. Decree 35 specifies the kinds of acceptable papers to prove such relationships.

• 3. Decree 35 adds a requirement restricting the head of household from intentionally creating obstacles for people who share the same household registration book.

• 4. Decree 35 specifies the maximum length of a temporary household registration to be 24 months (Decree 52 did not specify the length).

• 5. Decree 35 specifies the procedures and necessary papers required to extend temporary registration to be undertaken within 30 days before the temporary registration expires. The local police should process the application for temporary registration within two days of submission. After 30 days, a person with an expired temporary registration will be automatically removed from the local temporary registration book. For students or workers living in dormitories, they must be on a list to apply for extension of temporary registration.

• 6. For those with floating registration, Decree 52 requires that this must be done before 10 pm on the day, and Decree 35 revised this to 11 pm on the day. After 11 pm, floating registration should be done the following day.

1.3 Appendix 3: The 2009 Housing Law

In the 2009 Housing Law, together with Resolution 18/NQ-CP in 2009, specific clauses were made to signify the priorities on housing for industrial factory workers. The state strongly encouraged the socialisation of housing projects for factory workers in industrial zones and supported investors with different benefits such as land-use leases and rents, value added and corporate income taxes. Corporations that provided housing for their own workers also received various benefits and subsidies. Housing projects for low-income labourers in urban areas also received various benefits.

Following this, Decision 66/2009/QD-TTg and 67/2009/QD-TTg outlined specific priorities for housing development projects for low-income earners in urban areas. These two decisions made clear priorities for the beneficiaries of low-income urban housing to be factory workers. In Decision 66, migrant factory workers were mentioned for the first time as the priority beneficiaries of the current housing policies.

Decision 66/2009/QD-TTgArticle 8. Beneficiaries and conditions for renting houses for industrial park workers

• 1. Managers of houses for industrial park workers shall lease houses to proper lessees who are industrial park workers; and prioritise those from other provinces who work under labour contracts in industrial parks with projects on houses for workers, and low-income workers without houses or with temporary lodging.

• 2. An industrial park worker wishing to rent a house shall make an application with certification of his/her employer being a production enterprise operating in an industrial park and sign a house lease contract with the manager of houses for industrial park workers.

• 3. Industrial park workers shall fully pay rents and observe rules on use of houses for workers set by managers of houses for industrial park workers; may not re-rent houses or transfer lease contracts. Violators are subject to lease contract cancellation or shall be handled under law.

Decision 67/2009/QD-TTg opened up potential opportunities to own a low-income house for migrant factory workers, as well as low-income earners in urban areas. However, Circular 36/2009/TT-BXD of the Ministry of Construction, issued in November 2009, required that potential buyers must have a permanent household registration in the urban area, which closed this opportunity for many if not most migrant factory workers.

In 2011, Decision 2127/QD-TTg approved a long-term National Housing Development Strategy toward 2020, vision of 2030, aiming to build a minimum of ten million sq. m of social housing for low-income earners in urban areas, meeting 50% of the demand of factory workers in industrial parks. Most recently, Decision 996/QD-TTg aims to build 400,000 housing spaces for workers in industrial clusters and high-tech and manufacturing zones in all industries.

1.4 Appendix 4: Determinants of Child Welfare Analysis

In the VRUMS data, we can only identify the parents or primary carers of 338 children aged under 16 (35% of the variables identifying the parent or guardian are missing). We will have to assume that a child under 16 is economically linked with the migrant respondents in the associated households. In the following analysis, ‘parents’ refers to the identified parents or primary carers or a responding migrant from the household associated with the child. City is a dummy variable equal to 1 for Hanoi and 0 for HCMC. Child left behind is a dummy variable equal to 1 if the current primary residence of the child is the hometown. Parents holding state jobs or foreign direct investment (FDI) jobs (compared with private sector jobs) refers to the type of ownership of a parent’s current workplace. Spending on school is measured in VND. The dependent variable child in school is a dummy variable equal to 1 if the child is currently in school, and the total spending on school fees in the previous year.