Housing Gaps Between Rural–Urban Migrants and Local Urban Residents: The Case of Vietnam

This chapter examines the gaps in homeownership and housing conditions between rural-to-urban migrants and local urban residents using the 2013 Vietnam Rural–Urban Migration Survey and the 2012 Vietnam Household Living Standards Survey. It employs probit and ordinary least squares (OLS) regression models and applies the Oaxaca decomposition technique to delineate the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics that shape migrant–urban local housing inequality. The results reveal that migrants are significantly less likely than local urban residents to be homeowners and that their living conditions are not as good as those of the urban locals, even after controlling for household characteristics. Our results further reveal that 45% of the homeownership and housing conditions gaps are attributable to differences in family characteristics. The remaining differences between the two groups are attributable to unexplained factors such as differences in the ability to access formal credit, commitment to establishing residence upon arrival, choice and preferences, inheritance, parental financial support and accumulated wealth. As a robustness check, we also decompose the two gaps between migrants with KT1 ho khau (household registration) status and those with rural ho khau. The results suggest that restrictions imposed by the ho khau system may have a role to play.