The experience of poor household in urban area: a case study in Hanoi

Urban poverty is becoming more and more serious issue in the world as a whole and particularly in developing countries in particular. However, the issue receives much less attention than rural poverty. In the past, the problem of urban poverty has probably been underestimated at both international and national statistics. In Vietnam, the statistics fail to reflect accurately poverty in the urban area, especially in large cities such as Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh city. While the statistics show poverty rates in urban area steadily decreasing year by year, results from PPAs give a totally different story. Living condition of poor and very poor households in urban area may have remained unchanged or even become worsened in the recent years despite relatively rapid economic growth. Therefore, urban poverty problem need to be paid appropriate attention from the researchers and policy makers. For the reasons above, this research paper is dedicated to the study of urban poor in Hanoi, the capital and one of the largest cities of Vietnam. The main framework of the paper is the “asset vulnerability framework” using by Moser in her research on 1998 with the recognition that “the poor are managers of complex asset portfolios” (Moser 1998, p.1). The main finding is that the poor in urban Hanoi are experiencing different form of relation to the urban system. In some aspects of their life, they are excluded or marginalized from the society. In other aspects, especially economic, the poor suffer from adverse incorporation. But one thing that is true for every aspects of poor people life in urban area is vulnerability. The data support the argument that not all the vulnerable people are poor but all of the poor are vulnerable. As a result, the poor have many strategies for mobilizing assets in order to protect themselves from vulnerability.