Access to social security benefits for older people living in rural areas of Vietnam

Tran Quy Long

Village and Agriculture (Wieś i Rolnictwo), 2019, vol. 184, issue 3

Abstract: The current socio-economic situation of older people is partly a reflection of the historical conditions prevailing in Vietnam. The socio-economic structure in Vietnam has changed rapidly as a result of the development of market relations, migration, the transformation of traditional society and the emergence of modern agricultural societies, which has contributed to the emergence of numerous socio-economic risks for older people on many levels. Based on data from two communes, the author of the article shows that older men have an easier time obtaining monthly social benefits than older women. Older people with higher education receive higher monthly benefits than those with less education. Older people living in the rural areas studied rarely benefit from any social protection programs. The only beneficiaries of these programs are people who are over 80 years old and do not receive any pensions or benefits. Some older people are only eligible for benefits from programs not intended for seniors. In order to survive, the elderly have to work, mainly in agriculture, which is a clear contradiction of the current pension and health regulations, according to which an employee must stop working at a certain age. The availability of social assistance varies depending on the groups of the elderly. It can be said that the elderly living in rural areas, who are not entitled to social assistance benefits, are doubly disadvantaged. This means that the policy should aim to include all seniors in the social assistance system. In addition, there is a need to develop a program to systematically increase the level of monthly social benefits for the elderly to the minimum necessary for living, because the current level of support is much lower than the level of support for people remaining in poverty. The ageing process of the population in Vietnam offers many opportunities, but also many challenges, which require a new approach to the payment of pensions, social benefits, health care and the creation of an age-friendly social environment in rural areas.

Keywords: Community/Rural/Urban; Development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/344589/files/Long.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:polvaa:344589

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.344589

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Village and Agriculture (Wieś i Rolnictwo) from Polish Academy of Sciences (IRWiR PAN), Institute of Rural and Agricultural Development Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().