tailieunhanh - The impact of domestic remittances on left-behind older people in Vietnam

The impact of domestic remittances on left-behind older people in Vietnam. In the context of an insufficient social protection system the economic lives of older people, especially those living in rural areas, are greatly changed with socio-economic risks that are associated with the strong rural-urban mobility of younger generations. | Journal of Economics and Development, , , December 2016, pp. 30-40 ISSN 1859 0020 The Impact of Domestic Remittances on Left-Behind Older People in Vietnam Nguyen Van Cong National Economics University, Vietnam Email: congnv64@ Tran Thi Truc Academy of Policy and Development, Ministry of Planning and Investment, Vietnam Email: tructuonglam@ Abstract In the context of an insufficient social protection system the economic lives of older people, especially those living in rural areas, are greatly changed with socio-economic risks that are associated with the strong rural-urban mobility of younger generations. This paper aims to investigate the impacts on the economic well-being of old-age parents of domestic remittances, sent by their children who have migrated from rural to urban areas. Using data from the Vietnam Household Living Standard Survey (VHLSS) in 2004, 2008 and 2012 with logistic regression models, we found that domestic remittances played an essential role in improving income/ expenditure per capita and reducing poverty rates of older people’s households. Domestic remittances also contributed to reduce Gini coefficients, which were calculated using both income and expenditure per capita. Keywords: Aging; migration; domestic remittances; older people; Vietnam. Journal of Economics and Development 30 Vol. 18, , December 2016 1. Introduction old-aged parents. Stark and Lucas (1988) proved that domestic remittances from the migrants helped rural elderly households in Botswana to cope with the farming risks caused by natural calamities. Cameron and CobbClark (2005), examining the case of Indonesia, showed that mobile workers contribute partly to their family members through remittances and such remittances helped to improve the income and health of their old-age parents, particularly helping to reduce the farming time of female older people in rural Indonesia. However, the authors emphasized that, as .