Vietnamese families in transition

JOURNAL OF SCIENCE OF HNUE 2011, Vol. 56, N◦. 1, pp. 56-65 VIETNAMESE FAMILIES IN TRANSITION Nguyen Thanh Binh Hanoi National University of Education E-mail: binh1980gdct@yahoo.com.vn Abstract. Vietnam is now undergoing the process of industrialization and modernization. Everything is changing and Vietnamese families are no ex- ception. This article tries to clarify the diversity of family forms in industrial perspective in present day Vietnam, such as: nuclear family, extended fam- ily, family at husband’s home, family at wife’s home and making a separate home. That means the assumption that Vietnamese families will converge to conjugal family as Goode’s conclusion is not true. Keyword: Nuclear family, Extended family, Family at wifes home, Making a separate home, Family at husbands home, Vietnamese, transition. 1. Introduction Over recent years, the subject of family has drawn the attention not only of social researchers but also of the government and other social organizations. Indeed, In recent years the family has become the object of intense public interest [3;12]; family has become an increasingly important question within the political parties, parliament, the feminist movement, and indeed among the public at large [11;18]. Already Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote a lot of pages in their works to talk about family: The German ideology, The Communist Manifesto, etc., They asserted that families were a cell of society, took part in every productive process from commodity production to consumption, from giving birth to new generations to fostering and educating people. A Resolution adopted by the Tenth Communist Party Congress has affirmed: shaping a family of comfort, equality, progress, happi- ness. The family is home for every person, is an important environment for taking form, nurturing and educating of the people [1;103-104]. Rebuilding and recovering from the war is in the Vietnamese political discourse called renovation (Doi Moi in Vietnamese) of the country. In the renovation of the country the Vietnamese communist party and the state always give special attention to the construction of new Vietnamese families. The movement to build 56 Vietnamese families in transition a new cultured family has had remarkable success. Reform processes has brought the families in Vietnam new opportunities to develop; the living standard of the greatest part of Vietnamese families, in general, is improving, the basic functions of families have changed for the better. Economically Vietnam is an emerging market, and has been one of the fastest growing countries in the world - becoming a new Asian Tiger. Annual real gross domestic product (GDP) growth averaged 6.8 percent in the period 1986-2006, with relatively little volatility and moderate inflation. In nominal terms, the economy was 10 times its latest-1980s size in 2006, at 61 billion USD, making Vietnam the 58th largest economy in the world in 2006, up from 76th in 1986. According to the Deutsche Bank research growth forecast model, Vietnam will remain in the same growth league as China and India until 2020. In this context of market economy with the expansion of cooperation and cultural exchange, Vietnamese families are changing and adjusting to the new conditions. This paper is aiming at a description of how families form changes in present day Vietnam, since then, affirming the diversity of Vietnamese families forms in transition. 2. Content 2.1. Method This is not a field study, but an attempt at a synthesis of a number of sources, secondary as well as primary. In other words, it relies on the result of a lot of research; it is to a large extent a survey of existing literature. That means; I col- lect, interpret and evaluate different studies results, which were applied by different researchers and used here as my resources. 2.2. Results 2.2.1. Industrialization in present day Vietnam Employed labour structure in the economic sector The labour structure in Vietnam continued to move in a positive way: the numbers of labour shifting from the field of agriculture to that of industry-construction and service (see Table 1). The labor in agriculture and forestry is descending from 53.61% in 2005 to 48.22% in 2009. Conversely, the labour in manufacturing and construction as well as wholesale and retail trade is increasing. That means indus- trialization has been taking place in Vietnam. 57 Nguyen Thanh Binh Table 1: Structure of employed population at 15 years of age and above as of annual 1 July by different kinds of economic activity (%) 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 Agriculture and forestry 53.61 51.78 50.20 48.87 48.22 Fishing 3.49 3.59 3.70 3.75 3.70 Mining and quarrying 0.80 0.85 0.90 0.96 1.00 Manufacturing 12.34 13.05 13.50 14.04 14.35 Electricity, gas and water supply 0.36 0.40 0.45 0.50 0.55 Construction 4.70 4.93 5.13 5.33 5.64 Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles, motor cycles and personal and household goods 10.58 10.81 11.02 11.04 11.07 Total 100 100 100 100 100 (Source: Statistical Handbook, 2009, General Offical Statistics.) Number and rate of urban population in the country Urbanization has also accelerated under Doi Moi; the United Nations esti- mates that the proportion of the population in urban areas increased by only two percentage points, from 18.3 percent to 20.3 percent between 1970 and 1990; but reached 26.7% in 2005, reflecting a three-fold increase in urban growth. General Statistic Offices estimates that the urban population grew from 11.8 million in 1986 to 23.4 million in 2007, so that the absolute increment of the urban population was almost as large (11.6 million) as the increment of rural population (12.5 million, from 49.3 to 61.8 million). 2.2.2. Impact of industrialization on Vietnamese families forms According to Goode, industrialization is pressing all the family systems to- wards what he calls the conjugal family: They converge towards the conjugal family [4;25. In previous parts, we affirm at that time Vietnam has been undergoing the industrialization process, so in this part we will check whether Vietnamese families now converges towards the conjugal family as Goode said or not? To do it, firstly I introduce a brief presentation of Goode’s view about the worldwide trend toward the conjugal family under industrialization. Secondly, we affirm whether Vietnamese families at present converge towards conjugal family or diverge in to many Vietnamese family forms. In the well-known work World Revolution and Family patterns, Goode relied 58 Vietnamese families in transition on an enormous amount of material given by different original sources on family structure and change in six major world cultures: the West, sub - Saharan Africa, Arabic Islam, China, Japan and India during the fifty year period since about the beginning of this century until the moment his work was written. This book aimed at examining how the family patterns in these different parts of the world have changed under the impacts of social transformations that he summed up as industrialization. Goode focused on family change in a number of variables: age at marriage, freedom of mate selection, bride price, fertility, divorce, remarriage, etc. Industrialization and its effect on the family Goode affirms: Wherever the economic system expands through industrial- ization, family patterns change [4;6], and according to him industrialization was pressing towards the conjugal family. He explains that, industrialization sets the requirements of development to which the extended kinship network is a definite hindrance, and the conjugal family fits the modern industrial system. He said: The ideology of the conjugal family proclaims the right of the individual to choose his or her spouse, place to live, and even which kin obligations to accept, as against the acceptance of other decisions. It encourages love, which in every major civilization has been given a prominent place in fantasy, poetry, art, and legend as a wonderful, perhaps even exalted experience, even when its reality was guarded against. Finally, it asserts that if one’s family life is unpleasant, one has the right to change it [4;19]. So the ideology of the conjugal family asserts the worth of the individual, and the equality of individuals, as against class, caste, or gender barriers. In the words of Goode, the ideology of the conjugal family is a radical one, destructive of the older traditions in almost every society. To sum up, Goode affirms: Wherever the economic system expands through industrialization, family patterns change. Extended kinship ties weaken, lineage patterns dissolve, and a trend toward some form of the conjugal system generally begins to appear and that is, the nuclear family becomes a more independent kinship unit [4;6]. He also writes: at the present time a somewhat similar set of influences is affecting all world cultures. All of them are moving toward industrialization, although at varying speeds and from different points. Their family systems are also approaching some variance of the conjugal system. We have stated as an initial point of view, validated throughout by data, that the direction of change for each characteristic of the family might be very different from one culture to another even though the pattern of movement for the system as a whole is towards a variant of the conjugal type [4;368-369]. Vietnamese families forms under industrialization Based on the results of their comparative study, many sociologists said that 59 Nguyen Thanh Binh the form of family life in one country is too coloured for them to have a concept of the family. The form of family varies not only from one society to another but also from one class to another within the same society. These variations resulted from many economic and organizational factors, accidents of personal and family history, and different rules or customs about who should establish independent households. For example, at one national territorial unity, Vietnamese author Do Thai Dong clarified that Kinh families are different from the Thai ones; within the Kinhs ethnic group, rural families differs from urban family. There are even Kinh rural families living in the North who are different from those living in the South. In multi - ethnic and religious societies the family diversifies further by race, religion, education, occupation, social - economic status, etc. At that time there are many family forms in Vietnam as follows: i. Nuclear family It is the smallest family unit, comprising of a couple, husband and wife, and their unmarried children. This family has two generations: parent generation and children generation. It is easy to find that there are many relationships in this family form: - Husband - wife relationship. - Parent - children relationship. If they have more than two children, there will be one more relationship that is the sibling relationship. The nuclear family has two variants: - Complete family: in which there are husband, wife and their unmarried children. - Single - parent family (lone - parent family, one - parent families): is the family in which there are two generations: parent and their unmarried children, but in the first generation (parent generation) there is only one person because of divorce, or death of one spouse. Pioneer anthropologist Malinowski stated that the nuclear family had to be universal because it filled a basic biological need - caring for and protecting infants and young children. No culture could survive, he asserted, unless the birth of chil- dren was linked to both mother and father in legally based parenthood. Murdock elaborated on the idea: whether as the sole prevailing form of the familyor as the basic unit from which more complex families form, [the nuclear family] exists as a distinct and strongly functional group in every known society [8;2]. According to Durkheim, the nuclear family members are united by a particular solidarity in accordance with the division of domestic labor. There are specific 60 Vietnamese families in transition functions of each family member. Parsons also said that the nuclear family with a clear role differentiation between husband and wife, fewer but more specific functions (such as socialization of children, regulations of balances in the personality of adults) fits the needs of the industrial society. Independent of the kin network, the isolated nuclear family is free to move as the economic demands. Furthermore, the intimate nuclear family can specialize in serving the emotional needs of adults and children in a competitive and impersonal world. It is manifested in the fact that the members of the nuclear family, consisting of parents and their dependent children, ordinarily occupy a separate dwelling not shared with other members of the family of origin, and that this household is in the typical case economically independent, subsisting from the occupational earnings of the husband father [10;10]. The nuclear family has the advantage that its members are attached directly to each other, sharing the same interests. Equally important is the intensity of emotionality within the conjugal family unit. This type of family is founded on mutual attraction and love. It is made up of a small number of people in close contact with one another. The emotional ties among members of the large extended family are likely to be diffused and less intense. The higher degree of emotionality in the conjugal unit is accentuated by the fact that custom forbids the individual to go anywhere else in the society for solace. In addition, individuals can more easily follow the opportunities of the labor market, are more likely to focus on the task itself rather than needs of their kinship network, and very likely spend less of their time on kin activities. So, the nuclear family unit is solid and stable in society. But besides that, if faced with great difficulties in life, the nuclear family couldnt often be resolvable by itself. Since this type of system contains no large kinship groupings that offer various social welfare services, it has no simple way of taking care of the dependent, the helpless, or the aged. If the children lose their parents, no corporate kinship is responsible for supporting them. When couples divorce, no cooperate kinship unit will automatically take care of them. To meet this problem, complex social security measures have developed in societies, along with homes for the aged and helpless, and specially organized private or governmental programmes for the handicapped. According to Asian Development Bank 71% of families reside as nuclear fam- ilies in present day Vietnam. ii. Extended family The family unit is larger than nuclear family being called the extended family. Traditionally, the term extended family has been applied to the kinship network of social and economic ties composed of the nuclear family (parents and children) plus other, less immediate relatives. It could be the expansion of either vertical 61 Nguyen Thanh Binh basic nuclear family, for example including members of the third generation such as parents of husband or wife, or horizontal nuclear family to include members across generations found with the husband or wife particularly brothers or sisters of the wife and husband. Any given large extended family grows and declines over the years as it is af- fected by fertility, marriage and divorce, mortality, residence rules, and the alterna- tive socioeconomic opportunities open to its members. Under modern industrializing conditions, this type of family becomes less common. Study of the extended family unites two independent concepts: the household and kinship ties. The former refers to co - residence, whereas the later implies relationship. When extended families share the common household, those most likely to be residents are the household heads brothers and sisters, grandparents and grandchildren, and depending on the society, aunts and uncles. The social and economic importance of the extended family can most readily be seen when family members are living together; however, this doesnt discount the importance of kinship ties. Even in societies where extended families do not reside together and nuclear family households predominate, the nuclear family may rely on extended kin to assist with the day - to - day activities such as child or elder care and may be emotionally and economically co-dependent on family members outside the household. Now we are talking about strengths of the extended family. Firstly is the durability and continuity of the extended family, especially in non - urban and non - industrialized settings. In those settings, it can furnish social services that are typically lacking. When the domestic group is larger, any given individual represents a smaller marginal or extra cost to the group. Consequently, the burden of the aged, the ill, the crippled, and the infirm is less for each member of a large extended family. Although the extended family loses members through mortality or migration, it is more durable than the nuclear family. That is, as in any other large group, the loss of an individual or two doesnt change the basic pattern of the group. Even the loss of the eldest male will not change things fundamentally, since there is typically another mature male to take over when that happens. By contrast, in the small domestic unit, the death or absence of the mother or father seriously impairs or even destroys the effectiveness of that family. Secondly is the economic strength of the extended family. It is perhaps most important that the extended family is better able to amass the capital for an impor- tant economic enterprise, whether that is obtaining enough money for a marriage, buying land or paying for the education of young men of promise. As long as those who receive the benefit of the investment also continue to feel obligated to share that 62 Vietnamese families in transition benefit with their kin, the group as a whole can function as a kind of cooperative, or savings bank. The conjugal family has to apportion its rewards among fewer people, but correspondingly there are fewer people from whom to obtain support when investment capital is needed. Having an extended family, they are better able to put together the necessary capital towards new types of enterprise, or help each other to get better jobs. We can conclude that the extended family has the advantage of focusing on human resources for the production of the family, and the generations can help each other through difficult times in life, which Robertson so called reproduction pressures. Reproduction pressures are all difficulties or challenges that individuals and families must overcome to survive and exist in the way of your life. To survive, people must have the capacity not only for their living, but also to support others in order to receive their support when they are in difficult situations or helpless. However, this type of family easily leads to different and conflicting generations. (The Generation Gap) In order to maintain it, it needs a huge effort of all members to overcome the tendency to separate. According to survey results by Hirschman & Loi, there are relatively few ex- tended families in both northern rural and urban Vietnam. About one tenth of rural and one fifth of urban is extended families. However, extended families in the south of Vietnam is much more common. One third of rural and a half of urban is extended families [5;163]. iii. Family at husbands home (Patrilocal) This kind of family means that the woman after getting mar