Older persons in vietnam employment and social protection policy issues

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
VIETNAM JAPAN UNIVERSITY

LE THI THU TRANG

OLDER PERSONS IN VIETNAM:
EMPLOYMENT AND SOCIAL
PROTECTION POLICY ISSUES

MASTER'S THESIS


VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
VIETNAM JAPAN UNIVERSITY

LE THI THU TRANG

OLDER PERSONS IN VIETNAM:
EMPLOYMENT AND SOCIAL
PROTECTION POLICY ISSUES

MAJOR: PUBLIC POLICY
CODE: 8340402.01

RESEARCH SUPERVISOR:
Associate Prof. Dr. GIANG THANH LONG

Hanoi, 2021


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Foremost, I would like to express my special and sincere gratitude to my supervisor,
Associate Professor Giang Thanh Long of the National Economics University, for his
dedication, patience, motivation, and continuous support to my thesis study. His timely
advices, scholarly advices have helped me in all the time of research and writing
thesis. In the beginning, I was an inexperienced newcomer to this field and also the
writing thesis activity. Without his support and persistent help, I could not imagine
that how to complete this task.
Many thanks are dedicated to Dr. Nguyen Thuy Anh, Dr. Dang Quang Vinh, Dr. Vu
Hoang Linh, and Assoc. Prof. Phung Duc Tuan, Prof. Naohisa Okamoto in Master's
Program in Public Policy (MPP) – Vietnam Japan University (VJU) for giving me
great support and comments on my writing, providing invaluable guidance throughout
my thesis procession. Their support with many academic experiences sharing helped
me a lot in finishing the research. Special thanks to Dr. Linh for your connection that
help me have a precious opportunity to work with my advisor. I would also like to
thank Ms. Pham Thi Lan Huong – Program Assistant of MPP who is always kind and
helpful to me in many activities in the program.
Last but not least, I would say thanks to the Vietnam Japan University for giving me a
chance to study here in the Master' program in public policy with many new things and
new knowledge of the complexity and challenges of public policy as well as the
capacity of solving the problem. That was the right choice to attending at VJU and
MPP.


CONTENT
LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................................. iii
LIST OF TABLES .....................................................................................................iv
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ................................................................................... iii
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................1
1.1 Overview of the research ........................................................................1
1.2 Problem statement...................................................................................1

1.3 Research objectives.................................................................................2
1.4 The research structure .............................................................................3
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ....................................................................5
2.1 Studies about the Vietnamese older persons ..........................................5
2.2 Studies about older persons in other countries .......................................6
CHAPTER 3: DATA AND METHODOLOGY ........................................................9
3.1 Data .........................................................................................................9
3.2 Methodology ........................................................................................... 9
CHAPTER 4: FINDING AND DISCUSSION ........................................................ 13
4.1 Descriptive statistic of older persons and employment in Vietnam .....13
4.2 Labour force participation of older persons .........................................16
4.3 Characteristics of older person‟s work by the number of hours working
in the past 7 days ...................................................................................20
4.4 Characteristics of older person‟s work by job position ........................ 23
4.5 Characteristics of older person‟s work by labour contract ...................27
4.6 Characteristics of older person‟s work by social insurance .................32
4.7 Major findings....................................................................................... 34
CHAPTER 5: POLICY IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS......................... 36
5.1 Policy implications ...............................................................................36
5.2 Concluding remarks ..............................................................................38
REFERENCES .........................................................................................................40


LIST OF FIGURES
Page
Figure 4.1. Working rate by age, gender and location ................................................ 18
Figure 4.2. Working rate by marital, house head, education level, professional skill 19
Figure 4.3. Number of hours working in the past 7 days ............................................ 22
Figure 4.4. Labour force participation rate of older person by job position ............... 24
Figure 4.5. Characteristics older person‟s work by job position ................................. 26

Figure 4.6. Labour force participation rate of older person by labour contract .......... 28
Figure 4.7. Characteristics of older person‟s work by labour contract (1) .................. 30
Figure 4.8. Characteristics of older person‟s work by labour contract (2) .................. 31
Figure 4.9. Characteristics of older person‟s work by social insurance ...................... 33

i


LIST OF TABLES
Page
Table 4.1. Descriptive statistics for the variables used ............................................... 14
Table 4.2. Workforce participation rate of older persons by characteristics ............... 17
Table 4.3. Number of hours working in the past 7 days ............................................ 20
Table 4.4. Characteristics older person‟s work by job position .................................. 24
Table 4.5. Characteristics of older person‟s work by labour contract ......................... 28
Table 4.6. Characteristics of older person‟s work by social insurance ....................... 32

ii


LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
GSO:
ILO:
LFS:
LFP:
MOLISA:
SDG:
VHLSS:
VLSSL
VNAS:

VHLSS:

General Statistics Office
International Labour Organization
Labour Force Survey
Labour Force Participation
Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs
Sustainable Development Goals
Vietnam Household Living Standards Survey
Vietnam Living Standard Survey
Vietnam National Aging Survey
Vietnam Household Living Standards Survey

iii


CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1

Overview of the research

The world is getting older: more than three quarters of countries will either be aging or
already aged by 2050 (ILO 2020). Population aging refers to changes in the age
structure of a population such that there is an increase in the proportion of the elderly.
The aging population is becoming one of the most urgent issues all over the world
with about 147 countries which are going to be related to the aging population by 2050
(ILO 2020). As the population ages, so does the workforce, the world‟s older workers
who participated in the labor market is increasing. As a consequence, the older
workers in total workforce aged 55-64 years will increase significantly 13.2% in
emerging countries, 17.7% in developed countries and 7.9% in developing countries

by 2030 (ILO 2020).
Vietnam officially entered an aging period with many challenges from 2011.
According to the General Statistics Office (GSO), by 2019, Vietnam has about 11.4
million older persons accounting for 12% of the total population, which including over
1.9 million (17%) people aged 80 and over, about 7.3 million (64%) elderly live in
rural areas and over 3.1 million (27%) older people are enjoying pension and social
insurance benefits. It is predicted that by 2050, Vietnam will be a "super old"
population country with over 22 million elderly people, consist of 21% of the total
population. Shortly, Vietnam will expectedly follow the trend of broadening older
worker participation in the workforce. As reported by the Ministry of Labour, Invalids
and Social Affairs (MOLISA), a high rate of 60% of older people aged 60-69 and 30%
of people aged 70-79 tend to continue work after retirement.
1.2 Problem statement
The becoming one of the fastest aging population in Asia that has created many
challenges in developing policies and programs for the elderly in Vietnam. The
majority of older persons are encountering difficulties and dilemmas in their lives,
about 63.6 % of older persons live without pensions and social assistant (MOLISA,
1


2015), thus, they may live depending on their children‟s financial or other support and
encounter multiple challenges in daily living. Due to the lower birth rate and the
effects of rural-urban migration, the children‟s financial support will no longer ensure
the income security for older people that make them tend to work more.
The coverage of social protection programs for the elderly is limited because its
schemes normally cover the good conditional households or working in the formal
sector that can afford to make contributions to pension programs and the poor
households that have able to get social assistance. Thus, the middle group is missing in
the social protection scheme. They might be middle income, older persons or workers
in informal sector. A great number of older workers is confronting unstable income in

Vietnam, because more than 60 percent of them have not been covered by any social
insurance and retirement scheme (Evans et al., 2012). It means they have not been
guaranteed a minimum income level regardless of their employment status. Resolving
the issues of old-age income security is important because of its large size, and it
engages in inequality and poverty.
Under the rapid aging of the population, a comprehensive and powerful social
protection system might become a key solution to ensure and protect older person lives
in Vietnam to “overcoming situations that adversely affect people's well-being” (UN
Research Institute for Social Development).
Paying attention to that issue, we do the research with a wide range of data, in
particular, refer to employment factors to understand further the working status of
Vietnamese older persons, as well as define the majority of work sectors they are
taking part in, and labour contract status.
1.3 Research objectives
The general objective of this thesis is first to provide an overview of Vietnam‟s older
workers. Secondly, identify the key issues and characteristics relevant to the
employment of older persons and social protection. Finally, from the working status
findings of older people, we will make a discussion of policy implications to deal with
social protection issues for the older workers in Vietnam.
2


The specific objectives are research questions as follows:


How is the current situation of the employment and work sector among older
people in Vietnam?



What are the problems of employment and social protection system among
older workers?



What should the government of Vietnam address the social protection policy
issues to protect the elderly in all work sectors?

1.4 The research structure
Chapter 1: Introduction
This chapter provides an overall review aging population, labour force trend and raises
problem statement in term of the employment of older person and social protection
policy need. It also provides the research objectives of the thesis.
Chapter 2: Literature review
This chapter will provide a review of previous studies on older employment all over
the world as well as in Vietnam. More significantly, from these papers, we will point
out data collection and the method that studies used, and the social protection policy
issues for elderly workers that they mentioned.
Chapter 3: Data and methodology
This chapter will make a description of data collection. Then, describe the
methodology that will be used in this thesis as well as explain the variables in more
detail.
Chapter 4: Finding and discussion
This chapter will discuss the result of the descriptive statistics in the previous part and
explain how the variables relate to the working rate among older people. Then, we will
focus on what factors may risk the elderly workers and generate a discussion of major
findings.
Chapter 5: Policy implications and conclusions
3

From the estimated result in chapter 4, this chapter will prepare policy
recommendations and key conclusions to address some social protection policy issues
to support older people's work conditions are better and safer.

4


CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Studies about the Vietnamese older persons
Giang and Pfau (2010) discussed the working status and the determinants of taking
part in the workforce of the Vietnamese elderly differentiated by gender. In this
research, they mentioned three types of the working sector as non-agricultural work
and agricultural work, and salary work. By using data from VHLSS 2006 and employ
logit models of groups of males, females, and all the elderly, the papers demonstrated
that regardless of gender, senior citizens who live in urban areas, in households with
more labour age people, live with higher income and enjoy social security are less
likely to work than other elderly groups.
Under the coverage of pension scheme in Vietnam still weak and limited, Ha Trong
Nguyen et al. (2012) examined the impact of monetary transfers from non-coresiding
children on the labour supply of their older person‟s parents. This paper used data
from Vietnam Living Standard Survey conducted in 1997/98 by the Vietnamese
General Statistical Office and a theoretical framework of Wolff (2006) and the
econometric model covers two equations: one for the parents‟ labour supply and other
for transfers made by non-coresiding children to their parents. The research resulted
that monetary transfers from non-coresiding children are greatly strong correlated with
their senior citizen parents‟ needs. The amount of USD 83 (one million VND) of
transfers per year is found to cut down the work supply of elderly mothers by half an
hour per week. However, monetary transfers from children have no significant effect
on the labor supply of older people fathers. Finally, monetary transfers will not be

fully taking the place of parents‟ labor supply.
Refer to the main part of Vietnam‟s labour force, regarding informal sector research in
Vietnam , Huong, Nguyen Thi Lan et al. (2013) provided comprehensive literature
and data review. The effects of the informal work area on social protection and socioeconomic development in Vietnam – a country that is growing economies in Asia but
the coverage of social insurance is still low. One in five employees is covered by the
public social insurance scheme. The vulnerable group in labour force is those who
5


have less coverage like labour in informal work. Expanding the coverage of social
insurance is a key policy area to protect the benefit of labour force in any work area.
Nguyen Nhu Thu Hoai (2014) with the research of employment behavior of older
persons in rural Vietnam aims to identify determinant factors of employment decision.
By using probit regression model with the data from Vietnam National Aging Survey
(VNAS) 2011, the author found that common social factors as age, health status,
marital status, and retirement allowances had particularly impacts on rural older
people's work decision but neither educational level nor ethnicity had any significant
influence. From the result, the study emphasized the role health care system; social
welfare system to support older people having low capacity of work; life-long
education to elderly to provide the specific skills, help them adapt to the competitive
labor market.
By debating on promoting longer working careers in the background Vietnam, by
findings of a survey of wage paid older workers and human resource officer in three
cities in this country (Hanoi, Thai Binh, Ninh Binh) with 39 companies and 428 older
workers, Thi Mai Huong Doan, Quynh An Ngo (2020) marked that flexibility and
security policies for elderly workers can improve the job and employment security.
The arrangement of business is the variable that has the most significant effect on the
employment security and job security of older workers. The survey showed some
interesting investigation that the transport and telecom service sector favor flexibility
in recruitment but the education and health area are still based on a „relief‟ strategy.

Under the aging population, Vietnam's labor market is predicted to meet the labor
shortage issue. Therefore, finding out what factors on promoting longer working
employment among the elderly is a significant study with the employment of older
people.
2.2 Studies about older persons in other countries
Concerned about the effects of China‟s economic reforms on labor market
developments, Margaret Maurer-Fazio, James W. Hughes, and Dandan Zhang (2005)
made a project to examine reform-era changes in the patterns of male and female labor
force participation and in the distribution of men‟s and women‟s occupational
6


attainment. The rural elderly have increased their rates of labor force participation and
the urban elderly have tended to decrease that rate. Some evidence of the feminization
of agriculture has been also pointed out. By using data from the Chinese population
censuses of 1982, 1990, 2000, and employ probit model with multivariate analysis
(age cohort, marital status, sex, and rural/urban location), the paper focuses on the
consequences of these changes to the labor system on the aspect of the labor market
behavior of women and men in the Chinese economy. They indicated the results are
women tend to participate in the workforce less than men, and urban women are likely
to work more than rural women. Because of staying school purpose, single young
people in urban areas are likely less to taking part in the labor force much greater
extent than single young people in rural areas.
Refer to the issue of labour force participation (LFP) and its impact on the welfare of
older persons, Gwee Sai Ling and Jacqueline Liza Fernandez (2010) examined the
impact of the socio-demographic factors (age, gender, marital, children, race,
education level, health status) and socio-economic factors (sector of employment,
individual‟s employment status, spouse‟s LFP) on the labour force participation of
senior citizens in Penang, Malaysia. Based on the data of 328 elderly above the age of
55 who were in various races in Penang, the logit model was used to determine the

probability that an elderly person taking part in the workforce. Finally, the result
showed that gender, high monthly expenses, previous employment status of the
individual, and spouse‟s labour force participation status have a significant positive
relationship with LFP. Education and health are related to LFP but are statistically
insignificant. Age, spouse‟s income, financial security, low monthly expenses factors
have a significant negative relationship with the LFP of the elderly.
Writing about social protection planning can be more realistic, the paper of Lok P.
Sharma Bhattarai (2013) examined a discussion about older people‟s social security
issues to investigate how social protection planning can be more realistic. They
defined that not social welfare but social protection planning as adult education is an
alternative for elderly's wellbeing. Adult education is an alternative policy area to
reduce the burden of old-age pension in a sustainable way.
7


Burholt, Maruthakutti & Maddock (2020) examined the transformative roles of culture
and social protection for older people in India, through a cultural political economy
lens. The framework analysis and higher-level interpretative analysis were used with
of qualitative data from interviews (face-to-face guided in-depth interviews). They
were 30 older care-home residents in Tamil Nadu, India. The study discovered that
there are differences between the value orientation of social-protection policy and
cultural practices. The study also provided evidence of the value orientation of socialprotection policy and cultural practices, which aims to reinforce culturally constructed
inequalities rather than protecting livelihood shocks.

8


CHAPTER 3: DATA AND METHODOLOGY
3.1 Data
This paper use data from the Vietnam Labour Force Survey (LFS) in 2018 to overview

the employment status of Vietnam‟s senior citizens and then point out the challenges
that the vulnerable older workers cohort might meet when they are taking part in the
workforce.
This survey was conducted on 824,143 people from 0 to 103 years old who living in
63 provinces in Vietnam, in which there are 116,781 older people (aged 60 and
above), 63.89% of the elderly in rural areas, and 36.11% older person urban areas. It
means LFS may provide an inclusive vision of Vietnam‟s employment status with
various workers from young to older employees, from urban to rural workers.
Aiming to identify the factors associated with the working participation decision of
Vietnam's older persons, we choose variables in LFS as follow:


Variables representing demographic characteristics: Age, gender, marital
status, household head



Variables representing socio-economic characteristics: Highest education
level, professional skill, job position, work experience, work sector, labor
contract, social insurance.



Variables representing household characteristics: Location.

3.2 Methodology
To make clear the research purpose that we mentioned in chapter 1, in this part, we
will use the descriptive statistics method to create a statistical description of variables
representing characteristics of labor force participants. Using the STATA 14 with LFS
2018 data, we can get an overview of employment status among the elderly in

Vietnam.
We have description of variables as follows:
Binary variables
9




Labor force participation: Because the employment of senior citizens is the
paper's objective, we need to focus on the significances of covariates that can
influence elderly workers to take part in the labor force. Thus, we will discuss
the probability of participation and apply binary variable in which elderly is
working (noted by 1) or not working (noted by 0).



Social insurance participation: To identify the safety net after the retirement
period of the older person, we examine the social insurance participation rate
by applying binary variables, in which the older persons were having social
insurance (coded by 1) or not enjoying any social insurance (coded by 0). The
term “social insurance” in this paper includes both voluntary and mandatory
social insurance. It is expected that the senior citizens who are enjoying any
social security benefits tend to work less than the others.

Variables representing demographic characteristics


Age: This variable will be divided into three groups: age 60-69 (the young
old), age 70-79 (the middle old), and age 80 and over (the oldest old). As in
some of the previous papers, it is expected that the older-old group is less

likely to work less than the younger-old group.



Gender: To identify the difference between male and female in workforce
participation, we use a dummy variable for gender and expect that older men
tend to work higher than older women.



Marital status: In this variable, we separate the elderly into three groups, there
are married, widowed and other (single, separated, divorced). Due to family
duty, the married older person may usually tend to work more than other
groups.



Head of household: This variable will determine the position of the elderly in
the family through their relationship with the head of the household
(household head, spouse, children, and parent). It is predicted that elderly
household heads tend to work more than in other positions because the head of
the household usually plays an important role part of the family, ensuring the
finances and assets of the whole family.
10


Variables representing socio-economic characteristics


The highest education level: The education level of older people is classified

into four groups: i) No schooling or incomplete primary, ii) Primary to
secondary, iii) Professional middle-to-college, and iv) University or higher.
Older people with lower education level usually have lower income and living
conditions, and therefore they are expected that likely less to work more than
those with higher education level.



Professional skill: The same patterns with education level variable, the
professional skill of older workers are divided into 4 groups as follows: no
skill, primary to the middle, college, university and above.



Job position: This is the first-mentioned employment variable in research. The
senior citizen workers are separated into four groups: self-employee, family
worker, wage earner, and others (cooperative members, owner). Selfemployee and family worker have been defined as vulnerable employment
(ILO), which denote by low earning, low productivity, un-condition work
environment, lack of workers‟ fundamental rights.



Work experience: Older persons are divided into two groups by work
experience: less than 5 years and 5 years and over. Normally, the elderly
workers who have less experience are likely to face difficult issues than the
experienced worker in dealing with the salary, work regime, etc.



Work sector: To identify the work sector among older workers, we separate

the elderly into three groups: own (agro-forestry-fisheries household, business
household), cooperation sector, public sector, and the non-public sector.



Labor contract: In the formal sector, labour contract is a must-have document
but it does not easily get if you are in the informal sector. We classify older
workers into four groups: i) No-term, ii) Others (3 months, 1 year, 3 years
contract), iii) Verbal agreement, iv) No contract.

Variables representing household characteristics


Location: The location of the elderly‟s residence is divided into two areas:
urban and rural. Like the result of several previous papers, we expect that
11


older people in rural areas have a labour participation rate higher than urban
senior citizens.

12


CHAPTER 4: FINDING AND DISCUSSION
To image an overview of senior citizens working status in Vietnam, first we will
provide a statistical description of the current employment status among the elderly. In
the next step, we will build analyses of characteristics of older person‟s work by
different variables and point out the employment issues that older workers may face.
4.1 Descriptive statistic of older persons and employment in Vietnam

Base on the data of LFS 2018, we have chosen several key characteristics of senior
citizens in Vietnam which might have relation with the labour status of elderly. Table
4.1 showed that the workforce participation of older people in Vietnam is 35.61%
only, and 64.39 % elderly were not working after 60 years old.
Social insurance participation is one of the social protection issues that employees are
facing, especially, older workers - a vulnerable group. The number of older people
who are not participating social insurance schemes is particularly high (99.29%).
Regarding older person rate by age, our calculation indicates that the youngest older
people aged 60-69 account for the highest rate at 55.82% of the total older people
while the middle older age 70-79 make up about one–fourth, and the oldest group aged
80 and above take the lowest rate at 18.56%. Under the aging population, Vietnam's
middle older people and the oldest group will increase and change the percentage on
the proportion of elderly.
By gender, the table shows that among older people, the male elderly rate is 41.77%,
and female older people are 58.83%. The longer life expectancy of the female is
explained as one of the reasons we get that percentage. As a country with an
agricultural economy, most of the elderly are living in rural areas (63.89%) and onethird of the elderly are living in urban locations.

13


Table 4.1. Descriptive Statistics for the variables used
Variables
Binary variables
Labor force participation
Yes
No
Social insurance participation
Yes
No

Variables representing demographic characteristics
Age
60-69
70-79
80 and above
Gender
Male
Female
Marital Status
Married
Widowed
Others (single/ separated/ divorced)
Head of household
Head
Spouse
Child
Parents
Others
Highest educational level
No schooling or incomplete primary
Primary to secondary
Professional middle-to-college
University or higher
Professional skills
No
Primary to the middle
College
University and above
Job position

Percentage
%
35.61
64.39
%
0.71
99.29

55.82
25.62
18.56
41.77
58.23
64.32
31.95
3.71
58.86
26.95
0.4
11.86
1.93
36.16
53.31
6.02
4.51
86.69
7.50
1.34
4.47
%

14


Self-employee
Family worker
Wage earner
Others (cooperative members/ owner)

70.62
15.92
12.01
1.45

Less than 5 years
5y and over

11.61
88.39

Own (agro-forestry-fisheries household/
business household)
Cooperation sector
Public sector
Non-public sector

94.42

No-term
Others (3 months/ 1 year/ 3 years contract)
Verbal agreement

No contract

11.39
23.07
54.89
10.65

Work experience

Work sector

0.21
5.37
0.00

Labor contract

Variables representing household characteristics
Location
Urban
Rural

31.16
63.89

Source: Own calculations using LFS 2018
The married elderly account for the majority of the older person group with a
percentage of 64.32%. The other group is the widowed elderly group accounted for
31.95%, and the lowest percentage is single, separated, divorced older persons with
3.71% of total senior citizens.

We got the calculation of the position of the elderly in their family or in other way is
the relation of the older person with their household head. The highest rate belongs to
the group of heads of household with more than half (58.86%) of the total, the
remaining percentage is spouse rate account for 26.95%, the child is 0.4%, parent
11.86%, and others is 1.93%.
In the past, because not many older people were able to school, we can see the number
of elderly in no schooling or incomplete primary status is 36.16% and who are in
15


primary to secondary level is 53.31%. That means only a few of the elderly have high
education levels: professional middle-to-college and university or higher (at 6.02%
and 4.51% respectively of the total older population). About 86.69% of older people
reported that they have no professional skills in work. This percentage has a concern to
the majority of low and middle education level that we mentioned above.
Regarding job position, as we predicted, the vulnerable job including two groups are
self-employee (70.62%) and family workers (15.92%). The percentage of the wage
earners and others (cooperative members, owner) account for only 12.01 and 1.45% of
the total number of older workers.
Besides, a great number of elderly workers (88.39%) have more than 5 years of work
experience and only 11.61% of older employees have low work experience less than 5
years. Even with the low rate, the elderly workers with less experience should not be
left because they may meet difficulties when startups with a new field that differs from
the job they did before.
To understand in which sector the elderly work most, we found a great number
(94.42%) of elderly workers are working on their own such as agro-forestry-fishery
households or business households. The proportion of older people working in the
public and cooperative sectors is 5.37% and 0.21%, respectively. The working rate in
the non-public sector is 0%.
Labour contract status is one of the important factors that refer to social protection

issues. More than half of the elderly employees (54.89%) answered that they have a
verbal agreement only when they get a job and 10% of older workers say no to the
labor contract. The remaining percent is 11.39 for the elderly workers with no -term
contract. About 23.7% of the older people are in other groups (3 months, 1 year, and 3
years contract)
4.2 Labour force participation of older persons
Table 4.2 presents the workforce participation rate of Vietnamese older persons with
regard to their characteristics.

16


Age: As we expected, the older tend to stop working when they are getting older. The
calculation indicated that the youngest older people aged 60-69 are most likely to take
part in the labor force (55.82%). The proportion of LFP in the middle older person
group aged 70-79 and 80 and above have a significantly low rate (25.62% and 18.56%,
respectively).
Table 4.2. Workforce participation rate of older persons by characteristics
Variables
Age

%
60-69
70-79
80+

51.73
22.99
4.58

Female
Male

30.44
42.82

Rural
Urban

42.96
22.61

Married
Widowed
Other

43.69
19.25
36.54

No
Yes

32.12
38.05

No schooling or incomplete primary
Primary to secondary
Professional middle-to-college
University or higher

28.04
42.79
29.42
19.45

No
Primary to middle
College
University & above

36.71
34.09
27.06
19.45

Gender

Location

Marital status

Household head?

Highest education level

Professional skills

Source: Own calculations using LFS 2018
17

The low workforce participation rate may be explained by bad health status and illness
problems when people aged. Because of poor health, the elderly aged 70 and above
may have no desire to continue working than the younger older person. In sum, to
encourage older workers to participate in the labor market, the health care system must
be improved to help the elderly have the best health condition when they want reemployment.
Gender: The probability of labor force participation by elderly men is 12.4% higher
than older women. Table 4.2 indicates that the rate of workforce participation of male
and female older workers accounted for 41.77% and 58.23% of whole elderly
employees, respectively. It is explained that older mothers have the ability to live on
their children‟s financial support than elderly fathers (Ha Trong Nguyen, 2012).
Location: The working participation rate of senior citizens in a rural area is higher than
in urban almost 2 times, (rural 42.96% and urban 22.61%, respectively). In rural areas,
the elderly tend to participate more in work because the characteristics of working in
this area are mainly family workers. They do family works such as farming and fishing
to generate income for the family but do not receive a salary. However, family workers
are also in the vulnerable works (ILO), they are characterized by poor pay, low
productivity, and difficult conditions of work.

100
80
51.73

60
40

42.82

35.61

30.44

22.99

20

42.96
22.61

4.58

0
60-69 70-79 80+
Total

Age

Female Male
Gender

Rural Urban
Location

Figure 4.1. Working rate by age, gender and location
Source: Own calculations using LFS 2018
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