Household registration in Vietnam and China
From: Stephen Denney <sdenney@ocf.berkeley.edu>
Date: Apr 19, 2006 3:55 PM
Subject: [Vsg] Household registration in Vietnam and China
I came across the following U.S. Congressional document:
China's household registration (hukou) system : discrimination and
reforms : roundtable before the Congressional-Executive Commission on
China, One Hundred Ninth Congress, first session, September 2, 2005.
Washington : U.S. G.P.O. : For sale by the Supt. of Docs., U.S.
G.P.O., 2005.
iii, 41 p. ; 24 cm.
Full text online at:
Text version: http://purl.access.gpo.gov/GPO/LPS65325
PDF version: http://purl.access.gpo.gov/GPO/LPS65326
Are there any comparative studies on household registration in Vietnam and
China, and to what extent is household registration still an important
part of daily life in Vietnam?
- Steve Denney
From: Sidel, Mark <mark-sidel@uiowa.edu>
Date: Apr 19, 2006 4:21 PM
Subject: RE: [Vsg] Household registration in Vietnam and China
The Ministry of Home Affairs (Bo Noi vu) public administrative reform website,
http://www.caicachhanhchinh.gov.vn/, has some recent policy information on household registration (dang ký h? kh?u) in Vietnam, including a 2005 regulation on the process, text here http://www.dongnai-industry.gov.vn/dnluat/content.asp?code=2261 among other sites.
There has been some reporting in Vietnam on hukou reforms in China, ie here
http://www.vietnamese-law-consultancy.com/vietnamese/content
/browse.php?action=shownews&category=&id=46&topicid=607
and here http://www.vietnamese-law-consultancy.com
/vietnamese/content/browse.php?action=shownews&id=37&topicid=851,
reprinted from Saigon Economic News and Saigon Giai Phong respectively, but little comparative work outside Vietnam as far as I'm aware.
Like Steve, I'd be interested in whether others know more, including about the realities of household registration and enforcement in Vietnam.
Mark Sidel
From: Van Tran <tran@ssrc.org>
Date: Apr 20, 2006 7:20 AM
Subject: RE: [Vsg] Household registration in Vietnam and China
One major difference between Vietnam's and China's ho khau system is that, unlike China, the Vietnamese constitution states that citizens have a right to choose their residence and that all citizens are equal under the law. Moreover, the Civil Code was changed in 2005 to define residence as where one resides rather than where one has permanent residence.
Andrew Hardy has written that the Hanoi Department of Labor was unable to enforce its 1995 labor card requirement because it was contrary to national labor law, which states that laobrers have the right to seek work freely. See "State Visions, Migrant Decisions: Population Movements since the End of the Vietnam War" in Hy Van Luong (ed) Post War Vietnam. Andrew has also written on how the registration system served the government dual objectives of development and border security in Red Hills: Migrants and the State in the Highlands of Vietnam. Those who were involved in the government's organized migration were rewarded with permanent residency and household registration deter people from escaping from development projects.
Anita Chang has argued that one of the reasons that Vietnamese workers in Taiwanese-managed factories are generally treated better than workers in Taiwanese managed factories in China is the lack of strict enforcement of household registraiton. See http://rspas.anu.edu.au/papers/ccc/AC_chan_wang.pdf
In Vietnam there seems to be two different debates with regards to household registration, and Vietnamese appears more willing to change the system than their Chinese counterparts: (1) how to allocate public goods and services and whether household registration should be used, as is the practice now and (2) whether there should be a different way to register and maintain public security other than through the household registration system. The Ministy of Public Security has argued that they should maintain the system simply for administrative and security reasons, and that services and goods should not be linked to household registration. Even if household registration itself is not used and there is no distinction between temporary and permanent residence, "residence" or "domicile" is likely to be used for determining access to public schools. What then does residency or domicle mean? And for welfare or needs based programs like the hunger alleviation and poverty reduction programs that are based on income, even in Ho Chi Minh City which has removed household registation as a disqualification for such programs, migrant workers' income often exceed the very low threshold level set by the city or state. Thus, the benefits of a changed household registration is unclear with respect to this group.
Best,
Van Tran