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 1.2 Problem statement 1.3 Research objectives .2 1.4 The research structure .3 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Studies about the Vietnamese older persons 2.2 Studies about older persons in other countries .6 CHAPTER 3: DATA AND METHODOLOGY 3.1 Data 3.2 Methodology 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 No schooling or low education level workers are usually choosing self-employee in the job position The older workers who quit school before incomplete primary have a significantly high rate of self-employee at 71.91% The same situation of the level from primary to secondary have self-worker rate is 71.81% and decrease about 10% self-labor in the education level from professional middle to the college of older worker (63.37%) On other side, advantages of high education help qualified elderly workers can get more choices when participating in the labor market The wage-earner rate of this subject is more than one-third of the total number of workers in university degrees or higher (39.38%) We realize a gradual decrease in the rate of self-employees in different professional skill levels among senior citizens With the no-skill older workers, the proportion of self-employees is quite high (at 72.53%), and its rate step by step gets down following the decrease of skill level At the primary-to-middle employment skill, the selfemployee rate account for 59.75% of all older workers, at college professional skill, this rate is 54.7%, and at the university and above skill, the percent is 39.64% The older persons who have a higher vocational skill level, the less likely to join the self-employed group because with their good experience and high professional skill, they can get several better jobs than a self- employee job with many risks such as unstable income, low income, no social insurance, no labor contract 4.5 Characteristics of older person’s work by labour contract Labor contracts and social insurance are two of the characteristics of work in the formal areas The importance of these documents is drawn clearly when the workers face risks in working such as an occupational accident or job quitting or labor exploitation Part 4.5 and the next part 4.6 will concentrate on the status of the labor contract and social insurance among older workers in Vietnam Figure 4.6 illustrate the labour force participation rate of older person by labour contract into four groups: (i) No term, (ii) Other, (iii) Verbal agreement, and (iv) No contract 27 100 90 80 70 60 54.89 50 40 30 20 23.07 11.39 10.65 10 No-term Other Verbal agreement No contract Figure 4.6 Labour force participation rate of older person by labour contract Source: Own calculations using LFS 2018 By age, the rate of verbal agreement is significantly higher than others Among the youngest older people (age 60-69), about 55.17% of elderly workers get employment by verbal agreement Half of middle-aged older workers (age 70-79) have a similar rate of verbal agreement at 53.33%., and verbal contract rate account for 41.99% of the total of oldest elderly workers Regardless of age, the proportion of verbal agreement of senior citizen employees still makes up a huge part of the labor force Besides, from table 4.5, we note that the nocontract rate of the older worker is also a concerning issue (about 10~14% of elderly employees in the various age groups) Table 4.5 Characteristics of older person‟s work by labour contract Age 60-69 70-79 >=80 No-term Other Verbal agreement No contract % % % % 11.32 10.68 26.16 22.96 24.72 17.04 55.17 53.33 41.99 10.55 11.27 14.81 28 Gender Female Male 6.91 13.54 13.21 27.80 67.77 48.71 12.11 9.95 Location Rural Urban 7.30 17.85 18.08 30.96 64.50 39.68 10.11 11.5 Highest education level No schooling or incomplete primary Primary to secondary Professional middle-to-college University or higher 1.60 4.79 80.45 13.16 9.29 24.41 56.67 9.64 27.90 44.18 13.58 14.35 40.24 45.1 6.6 8.06 5.18 16.45 68.1 10.27 26.62 27.53 40.24 43.57 46.28 45.10 16.9 5.17 6.60 12.9 21.01 8.06 Professional skills No Primary to middle College University & above Source: Own calculations using LFS 2018 The agreements above (no contract or verbal agreement) cannot protect older workers from risks in employment because there is no binding contract between employers and employees Without a formal contract the older workers always have challenges in working, in particular, pension, health insurance to protect them in the aged period In gender, among elderly female workers, the verbal contract rate accounts for about two-thirds, and the no-contract rate is 12.2% In total, for every 10 female older workers about workers are working in unsafe conditions as no-contract or deal verbal agreement only 29 No contract 11.5 Urban 30.96 Location 17.85 39.68 Other No-term 10.11 Rural 64.50 18.08 7.30 9.95 Gender Verbal agreement Male 48.71 27.80 13.54 12.11 13.21 6.91 Female 67.77 14.81 17.04 Age >=80 41.99 26.16 11.27 70-79 10.68 53.33 24.72 10.55 60-69 11.32 20 55.17 22.96 40 60 80 100 Figure 4.7 Characteristics of older person‟s work by labour contract (1) Source: Own calculations using LFS 2018 Again, the proportional difference between rural and urban is being shown in figure 4.7 (1) In rural areas, the elderly workers have a verbal agreement proportion at 64.50% which is higher almost times than in urban areas (39.68%) That makes sense as the LFP rate among the elderly in rural areas is twice as high in urban areas (figure 4.1) 30 No contract 8.06 6.60 Professional skills University & above Verbal agreement 45.10 40.24 Other 21.01 5.17 College 46.28 No-term 27.53 12.9 16.9 Primary to middle 43.57 26.62 10.27 68.1 No 16.45 Highest education level 5.18 8.06 6.6 University or higher 45.1 40.24 14.35 13.58 Professional middle-to-college 44.18 27.90 9.64 56.67 Primary to secondary 24.41 9.29 13.16 80.45 No schooling or incomplete primary 4.79 1.60 20 40 60 80 100 Figure 4.8 Characteristics of older person‟s work by labour contract (2) Source: Own calculations using LFS 2018 In figure 4.8, it seems that the verbal agreement factor has no much association with the education level and professional skills of the older workers in Vietnam Only the low education level group (no school and incomplete primary) and no vocational skill level group had a significantly high verbal agreement rate They are 80.45% and 68.1%, respectively Once again the choice of qualified old workers is always more dominant than others 31 The rate of older people owns a contract (no-term or term) accounts for 95.34% of elderly with university and higher education levels (40.24% for the no-term group, and 45.10% for others) Interestingly, we have the same rate of contract ownership of older people with professional qualifications from university or higher 4.6 Characteristics of older person’s work by social insurance Regarding social protection issues, the issue of the rate of participation in social insurance is urgent According to the Vietnam Social Security, the rate of working-age employees are enjoying social insurance is 50%, in which the percentage of workers participating in compulsory social insurance is 47% and voluntary is 3% The health insurance coverage rate is 95% In this research, among older workers, we include both compulsory and voluntary insurance by one term, namely social insurance See table 4.6 with the calculations from LFS 2018, we defined that only areas related to formal work such as wage earner in job position factor or no-term in labor contract variables have a social insurance participation rate above 10% Specifically, elderly employees are working with no-term contracts have a rate of participation in social insurance is 79.16% These are usually high-quality elderly workers with many benefits in work In addition, the remaining factors such as age, location, job position in self-employee, family worker, or labor contract in verbal or no contract, all face the same situation that the participation rate of social insurance is extremely low Table 4.6 Characteristics of older person‟s work by social insurance Variables Social insurance participation rate (%) Age 60-69 70-79 >=80 2.27 0.74 0.91 Rural 1.05 Location 32 Urban 5.11 Job position Self-employee Family worker Wage earner Other 0.04 0.13 14.67 11.89 No-term Other Verbal agreement No contract 79.16 23.26 0.39 1.47 Labour contract No contract 1.47 Verbal agreement 0.39 Other 23.26 No-term 79.16 Other 11.89 Wage earner 14.67 0.13 Self-employee 0.04 Urban Rural 1.05 Male 3.3 Female 0.65 >=80 0.91 70-79 0.74 Age Location Family worker Gender Job position Labour contract Source: Own calculations using LFS 2018 5.11 60-69 2.27 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 Figure 4.9 Characteristics of older person‟s work by social insurance Source: Own calculations using LFS 2018 33 4.7 Major findings This thesis conducted statistically descriptive analyses of the current employment status among older people in Vietnam from 116,781 senior citizens respondents in LFS 2018 The main objective of this research is employment issues of the Vietnamese elderly, thereby raising concerns about the challenges and social protection issues that older workers may face From LFS 2018 data, the labor participation rate of the elderly accounts for more than one-third (35.61%) of the total number of older people, which might increase rapidly under the aging population in Vietnam By descriptive statistical analysis method, we examined various variables related to the workforce participation rate of older people in Vietnam There are some key issues we found out as follows: In general, the findings were investigated that older people are less likely to work when they get higher age Married older persons have a significantly higher workforce participation rate than in other groups like widowed or single, separated, and divorced The labour force participation rate of male older persons is higher than their female counterparts (40.82% and 30.44%, respectively) The rural older persons have labor force participation percent almost twice higher than urban older persons Characteristic of Vietnam economy is a developed agriculture, with a large part of the elderly (63.89%) living in rural areas, the working rate high Almost all of the high qualified older people (about 95%) have contracts Senior citizens who have low education levels and low professional skills tend to work more than others The higher education older people usually work in the formal works and have retirement pension after age 60, they are less likely to work for income security than others The majority of older people are working in the informal sectors The highest LFP rate by job position is self-employees (at 70.62%) and family workers and (15.59%) respectively Both of those job positions are vulnerable jobs that need to be protected 34 There are 99.29% of the senior citizens are out of social insurance scheme Therefore, in certain, the percentage of social insurance participation of older workers is low too Only elderly workers who are working with a labor contract (term or no term) have social insurance The informal older workers (self-employee, family workers) have the highest LFP rate but account for the lowest social insurance participation rate (at 0.04%) It is explained by almost all job positions of the older person in the informal sector and it is difficult for them to get a formal contract with the employer Although undesirable, this study still has limitations such as follow: As an employment survey, the LFS 2018 does not have characteristics of household financial status and health status These are also two significant factors relevant to the labor force participation rate among the elderly It makes more sense if the working status of the elderly can takes these aspects into analyses 35 CHAPTER 5: POLICY IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS 5.1 Policy implications By understanding the status of employment among older workers, which elderly cohort may face the risks when participating in the labor force, we would like to propose some policy recommendations as follow: First, developing policies to attract informal elderly workers to participate in social insurance and extent the pension system to help elderly workers can get chance to approach the national retirement social net The government could encourage informal older workers to participate in voluntary social insurance by support a part of the social insurance payments for informal older workers Moreover, it is necessary to ensure a fair regime between voluntary social insurance and compulsory social insurance The rate of participation in social insurance of the Vietnamese elderly is too low Because most of the older employees are self-employed and family workers, their income characteristics are irregular and low wages, thus, they tend to not want to share their income to pay insurance charges In addition, the condition of receiving the pension is 20 years of a period of social insurance payment It is too long for irregular laborers like informal older workers Similar to other countries in Asia, Vietnam's pension schemes are still limitations because this system covers only workers in the formal sector as individuals working in the public sector, employees in non-public or private enterprises A majority of older workers are working in the informal sector and informal work as self-employees or family workers We need to develop support programs to create a favorable work environment for the elderly; have social protection policies with wide coverage to all work sectors At present, the social protection policy is limited, mainly targeting the better-off groups (mainly through insurance policies) and the poor and near-poor groups (mainly through social assistance policies by the government budget and mobilized from the 36 community) The middle-class group seems to be abandoned, not participating in social insurance and not eligible to receive social assistance while this is a dynamic but risky group and easily fall into poverty Second, enhancing to the workforce with a high qualified older workers Set the goals towards an active old age living for senior citizens, encourage the older workers who have the high professional skill to participate more in the workforce by continuing to work after retirement The educational level keeps an important part in supporting for senior citizens but our research revealed that higher-level education has a low proportion of taking part in the workforce of older people Presently, it should be concentrated on the quality of the elderly workers through encouraging those who with either high qualifications or work experience to not waste qualified human resources under the aging population period Increase the workforce participation rate of elderly workers will be a significant contribution to improve the employment and labor issues in particular, wasting highquality human resources Third, implementing the livelihood policies to different groups of elderly people to encourage the elderly to taking part in the workforce as a special labour Revolving around the elderly, it is not only a social issue of spending more on health care, retirement, allowances, social security but also bright areas related to policies to support people elderly people's livelihood, creating a favorable environment for the elderly to continue to contribute and contribute to society Thereby turning challenges into opportunities for the Vietnamese economy, increasing its adaptability to changes in social trends Creating livelihoods will achieve two main goals: (1) Improving the quality of life of the elderly by ensuring a sustainable income for the elderly, contributing to poverty reduction; (2) Contributing to the country's socio-economic development by taking advantage of this special labor resource, the labor market has an additional contribution to the labor force, contributing to ensuring the social security goals of the 37 country Fourth, limiting and reducing risks in employment for the elderly group in the allsector In Vietnam, informal employment is defined as works in the informal sector Accordingly, informal workers are self-employed workers without labor contracts, are not paid social insurance, health insurance, or receive a fixed salary LFS 2018 showed that the elderly workers are mostly informal workers because most of them not have social insurance The rate of high working hours accounts for nearly half of the total elderly workers In particular, the status of no-contract in working is concentrated mainly among older female workers, elderly workers living in rural areas or elderly people who not have professional skills and education levels at the level of no schooling or incomplete primary Reducing risks for informal workers must begin with the labor policy One of the recommendations is promoting formal jobs for informal older people to ensure the right that elderly workers deserve to enjoy Only when elderly workers have official contracts and are covered by social insurance can they avoid the risks of market events or labor accidents or labor exploitation Fifth, making favorable conditions for the vulnerable older workers to access job The government needs to direct special interest in employment issues and social policies for the female elderly The proportion of elderly women accounts for a higher proportion than men due to long life expectancy, so it is expected that the number of female workers will increase than before Strengthen the health care networks for the elderly that the elderly in the countryside, the female elderly, or the ethnic minorities‟ senior citizens can favorably access work 5.2 Concluding remarks The effect of population aging is huge in developing economies like Vietnam This phenomenon poses social challenges and economic impacts to Vietnam on the decline 38 in productivity by the shortage in labor supply and lack of fulfilling welfare system This thesis presented an overview of employment status among older workers in Vietnam, in which using variables representing characteristics of demographic, socioeconomic, and household from the Labour Force Survey 2018 Vietnam had entered a period of population aging with a high rate of aging and many typical characteristics for the older workers in Vietnam: low and unstable income, a large number of older workers in the rural area, the female elderly tend to work more than before, the older persons with low education level and professional skill are likely to work more Under the aging population, the old-age group in Vietnam is increasing at a significantly high speed It raised the concerns of income security among elderly workers One of the importance of a social protection floor is income security for the working-age population; pensions for the elderly (SDG Target 1.3) We need to develop support programs to create a favorable work environment for the elderly; have social protection policies with wide coverage to all work sectors so that older people in the informal sector can work safely Basing on the estimation finding, regarding address the social policy issue for older people in Vietnam, our research makes some recommendations mainly to protect and support older workers, improve this cohort‟s working condition, and reduce risks in working for the elderly 39 REFERENCES International Labour Organization, (2018) World Employment and Social Outlook: Trends 2018 ILO Aniruddha, D (2013) Spousal loss and health in late life: Moving beyond emotional trauma Journal of Aging and Health, 25(2), 221–242 Burholt, V., Maruthakutti, R., & Maddock, C (2020) A Cultural Framework of Care and Social Protection for Older People in India GeroPsych Advance online publication, http://dx.doi.or g/10.102 4/1662 - 9647/a000251 Dam, H D (2010) Chính sách phúc lợi xã hội phát triển dịch vụ xã hội: Chăm sóc người cao tuổi kinh tế thị 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Fourth, limiting and reducing risks in employment for the elderly group in the allsector In Vietnam, informal employment is defined as works in the informal sector Accordingly, informal workers... 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