Women on the Move: Hanoi's Migrant Roving Street Vendors

by Rolf Jensen, Donald M. Peppard Jr., Vu Thi Minh Thang

This book is about a group of rural women in Vietnam who leave their husbands and children at home and go to Hanoi, often for weeks or more at a time, to work as roving street vendors. An important feature of Vietnam's Doi Moi reforms that began in 1986 was that the household was made responsible for its own economic well-being. For many rural families, increasingly unable to survive on agriculture alone, this has meant a growing reliance on the market economy for an outside source of income. For the families of roving street vendors, like many other rural families, women are the ones who assume this responsibility. They migrate to work in the informal sector of Hanoi's rapidly growing urban economy, but they do this precisely so that they and their families can maintain their rural identities. They must, consequently, balance the conflicting demands that are imposed on their time between the need to be in Hanoi to earn money and the need to be at home for a variety of ceremonial, agricultural, and family obligations. The book delves into both the rural and urban lives of these women to examine the nature of the job they perform, why they do it, and, importantly, why it is they and not their husbands who migrate in order to find work. It also contains numerous anecdotal stories that illustrate many of the difficulties they encounter as they go back and forth between city and country in a rapidly changing Vietnamese economy.

164 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[Justina · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this book in Hanoi Women Museum for the price of 100,00 VND. I believe that reading this book gave me a better understanding of the daily challenges people working on the street face (even if the main subject is the basket ladies) and as per authors’ hope I will never look at roving street vendors without asking myself what their story is. I also believe that this is the most valuable thing to buy in the museum’s gift shop.

[Sandra Gerrits · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting and illuminating read. There's a little lack in depth at times while at others there is too much repetitiveness