A Study on Intra-Household Gender Relations of Ethnic Minorities in Northern Vietnam

Vietnam is divided into three large regions: the northern region, the central region and the southern region. Within each of the three regions, there are subregions. The Northern region includes 2 subregions namely, Red River Delta and Northern Midlands and Mountain Area. The latter is defined as including 14 provinces: Ha Giang, Cao Bang, Bac Kan, Tuyen Quang, Lao Cai, Yen Bai, Thai Nguyen, Lang Son, Bac Giang, Phu Tho, Dien Bien, Lai Chau, Son La, and Hoa Binh with diversity in population. This Northern Midlands and Mountain Area or the Northern Mountainous Area of 14 provinces encompasses over 90,000 km2, accounting for almost one third of the country’s area and is home to approximately 11.7 million people, including 31 of the officially recognized 54 ethnic groups of Vietnam. Rocky mountains with high terrain and steepness are main characteristics of the region. As a result, the population density is just 122 people per km2, well below to the national average density of 274 people per km2. The region therefore is diverse in terms of ecology, area, population and cultures. Ethnic minorities are concentrated in upland and mountainous areas where access to infrastructure or health and educational facilities is limited and they are much poorer than other groups. They are among the poorest groups residing in Northern Vietnam. Being physically, economically, and culturally isolated from the rest of the nation, these groups are the most neglected and traditional, while benefit the least from the development process of Vietnam brought about by the reform program. Among them, women are the poorest and most disadvantaged. New changes and challenges brought about by the reform program of Vietnam in the late 1980s have put the women of these groups, who were originally disadvantaged and less productive, to a more disadvantaged position. Increased excessive workload as well as access to and control over resources are among the factors that reduce opportunities for building women's capacities and hinder their advancement. Before 1980s, gender inequality in Vietnam is often attributed to the Confucian traditional view on women's and men's role. Traditional women use the whole life to serve for their husband and sons. In the period of collectivization the traditional norms on gender relations were challenged both in ideology and in practice. Women were mobilized to contribute to the American war by stepping up production and running family affair, and to show their responsibility for national defense. In the period of 1980s and onward, the intra-household gender relations have been changed on the basis of the combination of traditional gender norms, residual of socialist ideology, and new socio-economic reform policies. The roles of social expectation on men's and women's "proper" sphere have been redefined and provide ideological ground to bargain a solution. Most ethnic minority groups operate under a patriarchal system, which does not give women the right to participate in the decision making process in their families and communities. Due to the influence of patriarchy, they have a strong boy-preference because of the requirement of husband's family after woman's marriage to take care of her parents-in-law until they pass away. In addition, the social security system for the elderly is still lacking in Vietnam Therefore, married women are required to have a son, and this fact leads to a number of issues such as abortions and an imbalance of sex ratio at birth. Vietnamese government has diversified policies focusing on ethnic minority development in rural and remote areas. These policies were concretized by many poverty reduction programs for specific targeted poor household groups and regions, such as Program Program 135 and Program 30a with the aim of improving the living conditions of ethnic minorities; Program 132 and Program 134 which targeted mainly at the Central Highlands to increase access to land and improve housing condition; the Hunger and Poverty Eradication Program; health insurance program for the poor. However, these programs aimed at a specific commune rather than ethnic minority people or households. For instance, Program which was first approved in 1998 directed to the poor communes and allocated financial resources for investing in local infrastructure, out of options including roads, schools, health centers, irrigation system, water supply systems, etc. The creation of such programs represented an attempt of Vietnamese government to narrow the distance of socio-economic development among rural and remote areas. However, it is revealed that the shortcomings of these programs soon became apparent: too few of interventions focused on health, too few of attention to gender inequality among ethnic people, a lack of community mobilization on poverty reduction (Adams, 2005). Vietnam has received donation from sources of assistance development. World Bank, Asia Development Bank, Japan, France, Germany are major donor. So far, Vietnam has been the 2nd or 3rd largest Korea’s ODA recipient in Asia. Korea's ODA has also played an important part in the considerable success of Vietnam's socio-economic development and poverty reduction. However, Korea’s ODA allocation has mainly focused on improving transportation infrastructure (51.9% of loan from EDCF), health, environment, water supply and sanitation. In comparison with the other major ODA donors in Vietnam, such as ADB, WB, and Japan, Korea has paid little attention on cross-cutting issues including gender relations in ethnic minority people. With the above arguments, this study investigated the impact of rural de-collectivization and economic integration on intra-household gender relations in the Northern Uplands of Vietnam for the period 1986 onward and the determinants of women’s decision making in household of ethnic minorities in Northern of Vietnam. It examined relatively unexplored questions on gender and development in comparative regional studies: How have intra-household gender norms and relations in the cultures of ethnic minority groups been redefined in the period of rural de-collectivization and economic integration? To what extent can change intra-household gender relations in ethnic minority groups influencing the development of their household economies and the Northern Uplands of Vietnam? To which extent can gender relations in ethnic minority groups be improved to be beneficial to the development of their household economies and the Northern Uplands of Vietnam? With a focus on gender relations within ethnic minorities, this study aims at strengthening the roles and positions of ethnic minorities, especially women, so that both women and men will invest their resources more effectively in the development of their household economies and the Northern Uplands of Vietnam. The results of this study would be useful to all participants of the study, including ethnic minority groups under study, local authorities, policy makers, and academic and research institutions. Findings and conclusions made from this study make it possible to provide strategies and lines of actions to the policy makers in order that the presence and future generations of ethnic minority people contribute more effectively to and benefit from the development cause of the Northern Uplands of Vietnam. In order to fufill the above objectives, a theoretical framework to measure factors affecting the intra-household gender relations in ethnic minority group in Northern Mountainous Area of Vietnam was developed. With the total sample of 480 households located in Thai Nguyen and Son La provinces, the respondents are women who all have husband and at least one child. Regarding the role of women in family decision making, our result shows that 49.2 percent of respondents made decision themselves on health care while only 7.1 percent on household purchases. In terms of making decision about daily household needs, 81.7 percent of respondents are women. The results show the importance of ethnic minority women in daily decision making, but their role on deciding considerable problems is neglected. The results also show an interesting point. That is the decision on visiting to family or relatives does not belong to woman but her husband. Husbands play a crucial role in deciding whom to visit in 87.5 percent of families. Child care decision is affected by the role of both husband and wife with 76.7 percent of respondents' consent. As for regression analysis, we include model summary and ANOVA and coefficient analysis to explore the important factors that affect women’s decision-making within household. By using the appropriate statistical package, it is found that women’s family decision making is affected by major factors, including women's years of schooling, income contribution to household, granted assets as getting marriage and male family member working far from home have a positively significant effect on the level of their decision making power at household level. The results of multiple regression analyses also indicate that husband's years of schooling, gender of household head, household current assets and husband granted asset are the major factors deterring women's autonomy in Northern households. With a focus on gender relations within ethnic minorities in Northern Vietnam, there are several policy implications for both local authorities as well as the policy makers from the results of this research: (i) In order to increase ethnic women's autonomy in decision making in Northern Vietnam, it is necessary to organize professional training courses for ethnic minority women. The finding of our results show that years of schooling of spouse affects to women's decision making. This implies that the higher education the woman is, the higher autonomy she is in decision making. Thus, as the local authority provide professional training courses, they will create favourable chance for ethinic minority women to increase their necessary skills as well as basic knowledge. Accordingly, more training programs should be provided to ethnic minority households in rural areas of Northern Vietnam. These programs should be focused in the main areas including health, education, agricultural development. In order to improve the quality of training, multi-year training programs should be implemented along with the expansion of long-term degree courses and short-term special vocational training. (ii) Besides, ethnic minority women should actively participate in projects and/or programs in order to increase their income. Local authorities may create favorable conditions for enterprises located in the Northern to offer employment opportunities toward ethnic minority women. The number of jobs available for women relative to those available for men in any economic sectors is considered to be an important role increasing women's decision making within households. (iii) Strengthening the cooperation between many organizations, individuals and societies to improve gender equality in remote areas, especially in areas where ethnic minorities live. Local authorities may cooperate with private organization to conduct conversations toward ethnic families about the introduction of a parental or paternity leave to show government support for men to play a larger role in child care and to support their spouses in pursuit of careers. They may work with youth to engage them on gender equality, rights of women, roles of men in childcare, healthcare and home management, as well as roles of women as leaders in the workplace and community. (iv) Diversifying resources mobilization from State, enterprises and social community to implement the plan, in which the local authorities will priotize the allocation of state budget for implementation of National targets on gender equality. Enhancing, inspecting and building the capacity for specialized inspectors in gender equality activities and the violation case law on gender equality.