Xem mẫu
- 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
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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.
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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
10.58 10.81 11.02 11.04 11.07
cycles and personal and
household goods
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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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 married will move
from her original home to her husbands home or near his home. Under this rule,
the new family unit was likely to become part of the grooms fathers household.
In Vietnam, newly - married couples often start their marital life in the hus-
bands’ families for many reasons. Firstly, a crucial factor that constitutes a necessary
condition for the dissolution of the household is the ability of the children to create
households of their own. To do this, it is necessary for them to be able to command
economic resources such that they can acquire a separate dwelling. However, the
first stage of the family cycle is likely to be associated with poverty; most of them
are not able to establish their own household. Vo Phuong Lan has shows that the
overwhelming majority among 206 married women (93,7%) said that they started
married life in the husband’s families, so only 6.3% established separate households
immediately after marriage. After some period of time many couples started the
fission often in this way: by first continuing to live under the same roof as the hus-
band’s parents, but cooking separately, then building their own houses (frequently
occuring after the first child) [12;31].
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Secondly, since what is important for Vietnamese people is the continuance
of lineage through marriage, the newly - married couple is not isolated from the
kinship system; by contrast, they are a part of it. They have to be able to perform
the tasks allotted to them by the kinship system in which they participate. In order
for this to be possible, they need to live with the husbands’ parents, and get at least
some ideas about the system of which they are part of. Some period of time later,
both sides agree on dividing the household.
iiii. Family at wifes home (Matrilocal)
It is a family which the man after getting married will live at his wifes home
or near her home.
In Vietnam, the wife’s family home is not popular. People around the young
man often sneer at him if he lives with his wifes family. There was a popular saying:
O re nhu cho chui gam chan (To live and work as a bridegroom is to lead the life of
a dog that has to make do with the limited space under the low cupboard).
iiiii. Making a separate home (Neolocal)
The new family will live at neither husband or wifes home. They will live
in their own home by relationship by marriage, and normally not far from their
families. That is, it was considered proper that a young married couple set up a
new residence, apart from the parental home, or commonly the newly married couple
created their own independent unit by taking over directions of themselves. This
often meant that young people delayed marriage until that new home or transference
of property was made possible by the elder generation.
In the Vietnamese traditional families, village endogamy was common. There
was even a saying in some localities: Lay cho trong lang hon lay nguoi sang thien
ha (Better get married to your villager, who might be lowly like a dog, than to a
person of high social status, but is outside your village). Other studies reveal the
same thing. According to Luong Van Hy, the rate of village endogamy in the pre-
1945 rural communities for which data is available reached at least 80%. The survey
in Thai Binh province in 1992 has shown similar results. Almost two thirds out of
206 women married men from the same communes; one third were born in nearby
communes then moved to their husband communes; only 2% women married men
from other districts [6;60]. Finally, according to a recent survey of more than 80%
of respondents both male and female live with husband’s parents after marriage. It
was a stable trend during the last half century [9].
Its family form is creating more space for the couples relationships and indi-
vidual freedom than living at the husbands or wifes home. However, it requires the
couple a very high self reliance to ensure a normal family life.
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3. Conclusion
Although anthropologists have tried to come up with a single definition of
family that would hold across time and place, they generally have concluded that
doing so is not possible. It is really true in Vietnam, because we can clarify the
Vietnamese families forms according to: the number of generations in the family,
the division of power in the family, resident of new family, etc. Goode’s saying
about the industrialization pressing towards the conjugal family does not take place
in Vietnam.
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