Migration, Resilience and Global Change

in the Coastal ZonePOLICY IMPLICATIONS FOR

COMMUNAL TRENDS

1Nguyen Huu Ninh, 1Luong Quang Huy and 2Mick Kelly

(1) Centre for Environment Research, Education and Development

(2) School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia

Objectives• To study the link between migration, resilience and global

environmental change in the coastal zone of Vietnam.– Resilience is the ability of the community to cope with, recover

from and if necessary adapt to the impact of environmental stress.

• In particular, to analyze the effects on levels of vulnerability and resilience of ‘doi moi’ - the process of economic renovation since the late 1980s.

• We look at two aspects - the rapid development of aquaculture and the increase in spontaneous migration.

• Develop the possible future socio-economic scenario based on local sensitivity, resilience and overall vulnerability.

• Based on projects funded by the Netherlands Foundation for the Advancement of Tropical Research (WOTRO), and the MacArthur Foundation, United States.

• Executed by the Center for Environmental Research, Education and Development (CERED), Hanoi, Vietnam

Case study

• Study site: coastal district of the Red River Delta in the North of Vietnam - Giao Thuy district

• Data sources: household surveys (56 hhs) of whole district in 1995 and 2000 to study trends over time and in-depth survey of one commune (171 hhs) - Giao An commune - in 2000. Covering income sources, household structure, migration aspects, etc.

• Interviews with local government and important stakeholders (district, commune committees, local organizations, etc).

• Secondary data: archival district statistics on socio-economic conditions, etc.

Giao Thuy district

Why choose Giao Thuy?

Giao Thuy is considered as a typical sample in the socio-economic assessments and analyses when global change events have been affecting the whole Southeast Asia region. With its own multifarious history in both natural conditions and socio-economics, Giao Thuy has become a priority in sample collection of the Red River Delta/ Global Change Programme.

It has the following properties:

Giao Thuy’s properties• Irrigation and flood prevention system was

formed with a very complicated dike and channel system.

• It has experienced the basic renovations in administrative and institutional system and is playing an important role in economic reforms to be multi-sectoral economics from subsidy and bureaucracy system.

• Covering the first RAMSAR site in Vietnam with an area of 12,000 ha that includes the mudflat, Ngan, Lu and Xanh islands located in the altitude of 0-1.2 meters above the sea level.

Giao Thuy’s properties (2)

• Having complicated socio-economic conditions with appearances of both Buddhism and Christian.

• The difference between the rich and the poor has been revealed increasingly and clearly in the last decade due to the development of major productions of aquaculture and breeding in the district.

• Trading activities of which the main products are foodstuff, food grain, agricultural, aquacultural and breeding materials take a considerable part in GDP of the district while handicraft and industry make up a small portion and are almost not developed in the region.

Giao Thuy is one of the most sensitive areas

in the Red River Delta.

• The area is suffering from increasing impacts of human activities and natural disasters from upstream area and coastal zone.

• Degradations of soil, fresh water reserves, bio-diversity, yield of marine products and environmental quality in the recent time.

• It has been suffering from the impact of global change process of which climate-related disasters have been directly effecting on socio-economic development of the region.

Aquaculture

• Aquacultural development - extensive and semi-intensive shrimp farming - has expanded rapidly during doi moi and represents a significant investment opportunity.

• Despite vulnerable nature of the coastal ecosystem and often unsustainable methods, the rewards can be considerable.

• We first look at the effects of aquacultural development on income inequality in the local community.

• Neil Adger and his colleagues at CERED/UEA have argued that aquaculture has increased inequality, damaging resilience by denying the poorer members of the community access to resources in the general sense (cf. Sen).

Analyses of Inequality

• All analyses are based on general survey for the whole district conducted in 1995 and 2000 and an in-depth commune sample survey carried out in 2000.

• Lorenz curves which show the distribution of cumulative income within the community

• Analyses of Gini coefficients - measures of departure between observed income distribution from equal distribution across the community - and contribution to inequality.

Lorenz curves* for measurement and decomposition of inequality in Giao Thuy

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

1% 29% 58% 87%

Percentage of population

Pe

rce

nta

ge

of

inc

om

e

Total income

Non-aqua income

Aqua income

Note: *Lorenz curves were drawn with basis of total income ofdifferent decomposed communities.

Decomposition of per-capita income inequality decomposed by aquaculture

and non-aquaculture

Overall Aquaculture* Non-aquaculture**

Gini coefficients 0.196 0.343 0.164 Income per capita(795) 4,287 765 3,523 Income per household (171)

19,933 3,555 16,378

% share income 17.83% 82.17% Contribution to inequality (%)

31.17% 68.83%

Inequalising effects + -

Note: * Aquaculture stands for the households who involve to aquacultural activities, in this case, they are shrimp farming and oyster farming as characteristics of the district.

** Non-aquaculture is for the households who neither involve to shrimp farming nor oyster farming.

(+) Income source contributes more to inequality than share of income(-) Income source contributes less to inequality than share of income

Decomposition of per-capita income inequality by different components of income

Note:*** Inequality effect(+) Income source contributes more to inequality than share of income(-) Income source contributes less to inequality than share of income

Income sources Pseudo Ginicoefficients

Share ofincome (%)

Contribution toinequality (%)

Inequalisingeffect***

1 Rice income 0.031 25.1% 4.0% -2 Other plantations 0.416 1.8% 3.9% +3 Breeding 0.114 23.1% 13.4% -4 Aquaculture 0.343 17.8% 31.2% +5 Fishing 0.371 18.9% 35.4% +6 Manufacture and service 0.457 5.6% 13.3% +7 Wages 0.148 3.5% 2.7% -8 Remittance income -0.175 4.2% -3.9% -

Overall Gini 0.196

Aquaculture and migration

• Aquacultural development means the rich become richer and the poor become relatively poorer.

• The community on the whole does become richer because of aquaculture but the important point is who benefits?

• The trend toward inequality amplifies the pressure on poorer households caused by population growth / land limitation, the rising cost of living and other factors such as loss of jobs caused by agricultural mechanization.

• The response of many households is spontaneous migration, only possible since the start of doi moi.

Spontaneous migration

• The doi moi process has increased benefits in urban areas. This has attracted rural laborers to the cities to work on various services.

• Spontaneous migrants in the district have been distributed evenly in terms of labor age (from 16 to 35).

• There are two patterns of spontaneous migration (i) short distance/ term and (ii) long distance/term

• Spontaneous migrants are involving to different jobs, mostly service industry (rural-urban migration) and cultivation of industrial crops (rural-rural migration)

Jobs of migrants are men in urban• Construction: workers for construction works,

construction material production and exploitation (sand, gravel, brick, etc);

• Carpentry: mainly employed by carpentry workshops and enterprises in the local region,

• Sawing miller: supplying materials for carpentry workshops and enterprises in the local region and coastal provinces,

• Aquaculture: working for shrimp ponds in the district or other coastal provinces;

• Transportation (passenger bike, cyclo, tractor, etc) mainly concentrated in big urban areas, this is the most popular occupation of the migrant in Giao Thuy and

• Employees: mostly concentrated in the local region and the neighbour districts, some went to big cities in the whole country serving in restaurants, hotels, etc.

Jobs of young women in urban areas

• Waste collection and recycling that is mostly concentrated on the urban areas, working in interval time between crops;

• Small trading: centred on the province and the vicinity, marine products and consuming goods are the main products and as the men migrants,

• Employees for restaurants, hotels, barbers', etc. in the townships and cities in the north.

Immediate effects of migration

• Changing gender roles - women more responsible to manage agricultural land.

• Some loss of skills in agricultural workforce.

• Weakening family structure because key members of the family are absent.

• Loss of social capital as members of community are absent.

• BUT increase remittance income.

Labour force allocation in relation with spontaneous

migration

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Labors involved inseasonalmigration

Main laborsinvolved inagriculture

Minor laborsinvolved inagriculture

Rate

(%

)

Woman

Man

Summary statistics of family membership, rice cultivated land and income sources of decomposed

groups in the community.Non-migranthouseholds*

Migranthouseholds**

Aquaculturalhouseholds***

1 Family size (people in hhs) 4.7 4.3 4.8Major laborers per households 2.6 3.4 2.5Dependents per households 2.2 0.9 2.2

2 Rice cultivated land (m2) 2,345.1 2,572.6 2,225.23 Number of separate plots per households 3.2 3.3 3.34 Income per capita (vnd) 4,309,262 4,316,911 7,157,385

in usd 307.8 308.4 511.25 Income per main laborer (vnd) 8,428,472 5,119,196 14,075,455

in usd 602.0 365.7 1,005.46 Rice income per main laborer (vnd) 1.946.655 1.447.152 1.866.315

in usd 139.0 103.4 133.3

By income sources (%)1 Rice income 24.3 31.0 14.42 Income from other plantations 2.0 0.9 1.33 Income from breeding 23.8 18.5 20.44 Income from aquacultural activities 19.2 3.5 57.75 Income from fishing 21.7 0.6 1.96 Income from trading, services, handicraft 6.0 3.7 1.87 Wages 3.1 7.1 2.68 Remittance income 0.00 34.8 0.00

Amount and number of households in use of remittance income

Categories Percentage of amount invested

Percentage of hhs invested

Health care 1.0 3.1 Education 5.4 5.2 Necessities 5.9 16.5 Food 7.7 12.4 Breeding 7.8 16.5 Construction 12.7 3.1 Agriculture 15.4 20.6 Saving 44.1 22.7

Discussions on Migration and Resilience

• Remittance income from spontaneous migration is having complex and often opposing effects on the resilience of the poorer members of the community.

• It is limiting the loss of resilience caused by aquaculture development and other trends but it is not enhancing resilience by diversifying livelihoods in the local community - it is being invested in existing agricultural activities.

• Because of effects on gender roles, skills in the agricultural workforce, etc, it has negative effects on resilience.

• However, because migration livelihoods are less dependent on the environment, there is increased resilience to current environmental stress and long-term global environmental change compared to local livelihoods such as agriculture and fishing.

• It is important to separate out these different effects rather than simply saying migration or aquaculture is good or bad.

Policy implications• Policy intervention should support trends that increase

resilience and counter trends that damage resilience and enhance vulnerability.

• Poverty reduction must be a priority to protect the disadvantaged.

• Creation of local employment is important - but profits from aquaculture are rarely invested in local community.

• The loss of common property resources such as the mangrove denies local people benefit from this resource.

• Some banks are now stopping loans for aquaculture because of the risks. This highlights the possible role of policy and regulation in steering investment towards activities that enhance resilience.

• Agricultural extension workers should address the change in gender roles and changing skills in the workforce caused by migration.

From the past to the future

• Have been describing situation in recent past and

focusing on trends over time - What of the future?

• Are changes in society likely to increase resiience

and decrease vulnerability? Or the opposite? Will

environmental stress increase or decrease?

• To address these questions,we are working on a

scenario approach.

Thank you for your attention