VIỆN GIA ĐÌNH VÀ GIớI
INSTITUTE FOR FAMILY AND
GENDER STUDIES
Presentation for The Development Studies Association Conference 2012
Rural-Urban Low-Income Migrant Men as
Husbands and Fathers in Vietnam
Catherine Locke, School of International Development, UEA, Norwich, UK.
Nguyen Thi Thanh Tam, Institute of Family and Gender Studies, VASS, Hanoi, Vietnam.
Nguyen Thi Ngan Hoa, Centre for Gender and Family Studies, SISD, Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam.
This research was funded by grant RES 167-25-0327 from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)
and the Department for International Development (UKaid) of the UK. Neither the ESRC nor DFID bear any
responsibility for the views expressed here nor for any errors therein.
In Vietnam:
 Rapid increase in rural-urban migration since transition to market socialism (doi
moi) + Increasing feminisation of migration flows
 Focus has been on reversals of traditional patterns and what these mean for
masculinities (eg. Resurreccion and Khanh 2007)
 Now though, there are a wide range of gendered family arrangements around
migration and these too have implications for masculinities.
Migration Studies more generally:
 Exploration of what migration means for gendered family roles and identities has
focused mostly on women and their experiences of motherhood and marriage
internationally
Moral panic about male migrants (errant, neglectful, disengaged):
 For men too ‘making a life’ (Whitehead 2002) is about creating/sustaining family
relationships. Crucially gendered power relations involves men’s control over as
well as care for wife and children.
 Being a migrant is about as well as in tension with being a good father or husband.
Concern about a possible crisis of masculinity:
 in the context of feminisation of labour markets, rising economic difficulties,
increasing aspirations/consumerism, and pressure to maintain ‘family values’.
Emerging Masculinities in Vietnam
• Masculinity defined in terms of patriarchal roles (Vu Hong Phong 2003)
and close linkage between men roles in the family and their role in society
and in nation-building (Phinney 2008, Wisensale 1999). High expectations
of filial respect, gerontocratic control, and men’s structural superiority to
women
• Transition and the Happy Family’s Campaign reinforced patriarchal roles:
men should be the ‘pillar of the family’ with prime responsibility for
breadwinning. Men should ‘create the conditions for the wife to fulfil
her mother’s role’ (Wisensale 1999:607). Vietnamese family values
seen as protecting society from foreign influences.
• Stereotypes of male migrants associate them closely with the ‘social evils’
that come with ‘uncontrolled’ urbanisation (temptations of alcohol, CSWs,
drugs and profligate spending). New ‘hooking’ economy promotes
homosociality and class differentiation. This is played out in new
masculinities performed through the leisure consumption of commoditised
food, alcohol and sex (Nguyen Vo 2008, Phinney 2008).
Methodology
•
Part of a larger dataset of 77 qualitative life histories of women and men migrants
to Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh (collected in 2008).
•
All low-income, rural-urban migrants with at least one child under 8 years of age.
•
Purposive sample to capture range of different family strategies. Two stage
interview: SSI + narrative interview. Secondary data and key informant interviews.
•
Sample bias: men with disrupted marital histories reluctant to participate, those who
did presented themselves as ‘victims’ blaming their spouse for the disintegration of
the marriage.
•
Reflexivity: Tam and Hoa’s identity and its impact on the research. Extensive
experience and those few interviews done by a male interviewer not substantially
different.
•
Ethnical approval in Vietnam and the UK, full confidentiality and pseudonyms used
throughout. Data lodged with the ESDS in UK for use by other researchers.
•
Outputs and further details available at
www.uea.ac.uk/dev/Faculty/Locke/Research/LinkingMRW
The Sub-Sample of Male Migrants to Ho Chi Minh
•
Migrants to Ho Chi Minh come from all over Vietnam
•
•
•
•
Dramatic variation in rural-urban ‘gap’ in socio-economic circumstances
Those from poorer rural situations are more likely to aspire to settle in HCM.
Those from Red River Delta less likely to, can only go home at Tet.
20 migrants grouped in those with:
•
‘visiting marriages’ (Wife and children left-behind)
(Chi, Chuyen, Can, Quang, Vu and Thuat)
•
‘remote parenting’ (Migrating with wife, children left-behind)
(Sau, Toan)
•
‘making a life in the city’ (Migrating with wife and children)
(Huy, Quan, Thanh and Duong)
•
‘nobody in the family lives together’ (Wife migrates alone, children left-behind)
(Tuan, Long, Vinh, Khanh, Hung, Sang, Viet and Vinh)
•
Trajectories of their life histories:
•
•
Ever-migrant women not seen as desirable wives by never-migrant men
(rurality/feminitiy/virtue), spousal togetherness most important immediately after
marriage before a child is conceived, childbirth is a trigger for migration.
Having young children and being relatively newly married is the ‘window of
opportunity’ for using migratory livelihoods to try to make a step change in
quality of life.
Classic patriarchal view of masculinity and men’s migration?
• Centrality of breadwinning for masculinity
• Chuyen: “Because the father is the breadwinner of the family he must
have a job and income, must make money to support his wife and children.
If not, he’s not a good father”
• Tao: ‘I had to go out to work; I had to work in order to support my
family… …I play the major role in the family. I am economically dominant
so I am the person who makes all decisions and I am not the one that is
controlled by my wife.’
• Toan (b): “Do you know how many men in my village are migrating to big
cities looking for jobs like me? But none of their wives want to get
divorced! They [his divorced wives] think the grass is greener on the other
side of the hill. They think I cannot earn much money then they try to
speak ill of me behind my back.’…. “my house is not a market; no one can
come in or go out whenever she wants. Even a market has its own rules
and regulations”…
An alternative migrant masculinity?
• Dung ’If my wife no longer loves me, it’s life. I never think of this end as we
were together in the most difficult time and always shared our thoughts.
We understood each other very much. That’s my belief. In case of her
changing I have to accept it.’
• Trust in wife grounded in their in their ‘love’ for one another (not in
loyalty, virtue or male control)
• Masculinity is defined not in terms of authority but in terms of forbearance.
Dung: ‘A man needs to be tolerant’.
Challenges of poverty for achieving desired masculinity?
•
Male migrants are absent, creating challenges to fulfilling their family roles as sons,
husbands and fathers, and these men work in low-income jobs which creates
difficulties meeting rising expectations for material incomes.
•
Chuyen: “…bring a good life to his parents and wife and children even though his
family has difficulties.”
•
Men borrow money in the city to send or take home if they had not managed to
make/save ‘enough’. Fear of their own illness curtailing their provider role.
•
Thanh’s separation, after a serious illness his wife’s relatives advised her “to
divorce me because it was expected that I would die”.
•
Hard work and emotional deprivation certainly, but ‘crisis of masculinity’? If there
was one for most of these low income men, then it revolved around failure to
‘balance the responsibilities’ and to fulfil masculine family duties and was
compensated for by ‘leading a good life’
•
Chuyen says: “It’s truly difficult for me to fulfil those duties [of being a father and
a husband] because I’m not living with my family. But the best thing to do to
deserve the trust of my family is that I must lead a good life, make a lot of money to
take care of my family, which is something I can do”
‘Leading a good life’
• Vinh: “As a father, he must love his wife and children. Only when he loves
his wife and children, can he manage to support his wife and children…
…If he is not faithful to his wife, he will not love and care about his wife
and children and he cannot take care of his family well.”
• Chuyen: “because [of] my wife’s willing[-ness] to sacrifice herself for my
family since we got married, and this is what makes me unwilling to do
anything wrong for my wife…”
• Sau “Frankly, we came here to earn money for our family, so we all the
time thought about our family and children; we worked hard in order to
better our family life. As a husband, I had to fulfil my duty towards my
family. I didn’t have money to spend on having sex. Firstly, the conscience
didn’t let me do it. Secondly, I was afraid I would catch a disease, if I had
sex with others; at that time, I would feel very disgraceful before my
parents and relatives in the home village.
Being a Migrant Father/Husband
• Vinh says that “A good father is always respected by all people. Only when
he keeps his mind in earning a living; he loves and cares about his wife and
children; he takes care of his family well; and he respects others, he will be
respected by all people. If he is not respected by others, how can he be
seen as a good father!”
• Demonstrated by visiting regularly, keeping in touch, sending/bringing
adequate remittances, etc.
• Toan b: “‘[M]igration makes me neglect to look after and take care of
them and I am a bit far away from them sentimentally… I cannot always
be with them to bring them up to have heart-to-heart talks to them… I am
working and living far away from my children and I think it is difficult for
me to compensate for their lack of affections and fatherhood.”
• ‘…You see, fatherhood plays an important part in bringing up children
therefore I am so afraid that they will not obey me and my wife when they
grow older’.
• ‘Shaky’ gender roles (Resurreccion and Khanh 2007:215)
‘Keeping the family together’
• Viet : “When husband or wife has to go away to earn money for the family,
and thus their relationship does not kept as good as before, or the husband
or the wife has an extramarital relationship, the marriage cannot be seen as
good. When children live far from their parents, they cannot be care[d for]
and brought up well. The marriage will not be good, either.”
• Sau: “I am not a good father, because I do not have conditions to take care
of our children well. Because I am poor, I have to work far from home. In
reality, I love our children a lot. I do not dare to spend money and I always
try to minimize my expenses, in order to save money for our children.
Because they do not have their mother to take care of them now, I try my
best to do it for them. I have been trying to earn money, to provide them with
food and clothes. Regarding to daily care of them, I depend on my mother
for it. Although I myself know that it is not the best way to bring up our
children, I have no other choice”
• Hung “I am a father but I cannot take care of my daughter… I haven’t done
anything for my family: that’s why my wife had to work far away. This
means I haven’t fulfilled my duty towards my wife. I haven’t done anything
for my parents either; on the contrary, they have to do things for us. I feel
that I am so useless that I cannot do anything for my wife and daughter”
Conclusions
• Migration for men in their peak child bearing/rearing years represents a
major threat to masculinities that are closely defined with fulfilling family
roles.
• Clear evidence of varying interpretations of what it means to be a ‘good’
father and husband with important implications for gendered power
relations round migration.
• Whilst more traditional family arrangements appear to ‘fit’ more patriarchal
interpretations better, great caution is needed in reading-off specific
interpretations of masculinity from any set of gendered family
arrangements.
• Some adaptive strategies maintain ‘positive’ family values. These are
reinforced by (narrower) official ideology which obscures masculine
desires of migrants for everyday intimacies of being a father/husband that
come from living with children and wife.
• Male migrants who can’t even in a minimalist sense ‘keep the family
together’ experience profound sense of ‘crisis of masculinity’, but do not
necessarily resort to hyper-masculine behaviour.