Giang Thanh Long and Wade Donald Pfau

4.2. Family structure of elderly households
Table 4 provides information about household living arrangements inthe surveys. About 70 percent of the population lived in nonelderly households,
and the remaining 30 percent lived in elderly households. The majority of elderly lived in households where an elderly person was the household head (over 60
percent). In those households, it would be more reasonable to think of children
as more dependent on their elderly parents, than vice versa. The fact that many
households with an elderly head still had multiple children living at home supports this argument.

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The Elderly Population in Vietnam during Economic Transformation: An Overview

A potentially worriedsome trend, meanwhile, is what appears to be ashift over time from households with dependent elderly to only elderly households. The percentage of the elderly living as dependents declined from 27.21
percent in 1992/93 to 17.72 percent in 2004, while the corresponding elderly
living in only elderly households increased from 13.43 percent to 20.67 percent
in the same period. Figure 2 shows this situation in graphical terms, illustratingthat the percentage of dependent elderly was squeezed at all ages.
Meanwhile, the percentage of elderly in the one-person elderly households grew from 3.47 percent in 1992/93 to 5.62 percent in 2004. This situation
was prevalent among female and rural residents. For instance, about 80 percentof the elderly who lived alone were female, and also 80 percent of them lived in199

Giang Thanh Long and Wade Donald Pfau

rural areas. Given various social and economic disadvantages of the female elderly in comparison with their male counterparts, the situation calls for social
policy makers to give more attention to effective social welfare policies for theelderly females, such as education and income generation (United Nations
Development Programme, 2002).
Among the dependent elderly, over time the vast majority were foundliving with their married sons. There were significant differences between ruraland urban areas regarding this situation: the percentage of dependent elderly
living with a married son in rural areas remained the same, while it decreased

200The Elderly Population in Vietnam during Economic Transformation: An Overview

over time in urban areas. This difference could be explained by various reasons,
including different characteristics of working and living styles between areas.
Table 4 also shows that this trend also held, but to a much lesser
extent, in the households where an elderly person was the household head.
4.3. Working status and housework of elderly people
Table 5 shows information about the working status of the elderly.
We can see that many elderly remained active, and they were working either forsalary or for the household’s agricultural and/or other enterprises. The average
working rate was about 45 percent.
By area, rural dwellers had significantly higher working rates than did201

Giang Thanh Long and Wade Donald Pfau

their urban counterparts. This situation could be explained by the fact that manyrural elderly people were engaged in agriculture-based activities. By gender, theelderly females were less economically active than their male peers. In addition,
married and non-married people were more active than widows. Higher
employment rates were also found among the elderly in households with an elderly head or with only elderly members. In dependent elderly households, lessthan 20 percent of the elderly worked. This evidence might imply that elderly
who faced the most trouble working (either health problems or disability) wereable to rely on their children for help. By age, the elderly aged from 60 to 64
maintained an over 60 percent employment rate, and this percentage gradually
decreased with increasing age. In summary, lower employment rates could befound among urban dwellers, widows, women, those over age 70, and elderly
who lived as dependents in households.
Table 6 shows the data on housework among the Vietnamese elderly.
Generally, the same trends found for working status also apply to housework,
but the extent of the differences tends to be smaller. The exception is thatwomen did much more housework than men.
4.4. Housing conditions of elderly households
The surveys contain many indicators that can be used to evaluate thehousing conditions of the elderly households. We use the following indicators:(1) housing structures, (2) sources of drinking and cooking water, (3) toilet
usage, and (4) sources of lighting. Table 7 presents data on the housing conditions of the elderly households through four surveys. We can observe that there
were improvements in all areas, most notably in the widespread adoption ofelectric lighting for homes.
Housing structures have improved over time. The percentage of temporary houses decreased from 29.25 percent in 1992/93 to 18.83 percent in2004, while the percentage of houses with bathroom, kitchen, and toilet (BKT)
increased in the same period, particularly for the houses with shared bathroom,
kitchen, and toilet (from 1.91 percent to 10.51 percent).
Over the decade, the elderly households had more chances to accessbetter water sources for drinking and cooking, which in turn might be good fortheir health. Percentage of the elderly households using an individual tap

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