Do Rural-Urban Migrants Have Higher Fertility than Urban Non-Migrants in Vietnam?

Abstract

Large scale rural-urban migration has coincided with an apparent slow-down in Vietnam’s fertility decline. During the period 1999-2004, rural fertility continued to decline slowly while the urban fertility decline stalled. Some the government officials are concerned that rural-urban migrants, particularly temporary migrants, may have been having out-of-plan births which are not allowed under the two-child population policy. This study examines the relationship between rural-urban migration and fertility
in Vietnam. The analyses consider a question: Do rural-urban migrants have higher fertility than urban non-migrants?
The study used data obtained from the Vietnam Migration Survey conduced in 2004. The analyses applied multinominal logistic regression models to compare number of children aged 0-4 among various groups of migrants and non-migrations. The analyses found significantly lower fertility among migrants compared to nonmigrants. Migrants appear to delay their fertility partly because of adaptation to the urban norm of lower fertility, but mainly because of household registration effects. The
results suggest that increased rural-urban migration is not stalling the urban fertility decline as well as slowing down the national fertility decline. Rural-urban migration is likely to have a negative relationship with fertility.