Many studies have suggested that under the context of high economic growth and strong flows of laborers from rural to urban areas, living arrangements of elderly people, particularly elderly women, and family relations will be more vulnerable to a variety of social and economic risks. This paper, using the Vietnam (Household) Living Standard Surveys for 1992/93, 1997/98, 2002, and 2004, will examine the issue by decomposing the elderly population in Vietnam with regard to various aspects of aging. With an investigation of numerous variables such as education, household living arrangements, and housing conditions, it is found that family structures have generally been maintained in Vietnam, although social and economic
contexts have changed rapidly since Doi moi. We find a relatively high proportion of elderly people living with their children, particularly their married sons. In addition, the elderly are not simply dependents in the households; indeed, they are still contributing to the households in various ways. A detailed decomposition of data on the elderly people, however, shows that women have certain disadvantages in comparison with men due to lower education, higher levels of widowhood, and living alone. There is also a big disparity between elderly people living in urban and rural areas, and between the elderly populations of different regions. Another striking finding is that during the past decade, the poverty rates for elderly people were
actually lower than those for nonelderly people, and the highest poverty rates occurred among very young or very old people.