The institutional context influencing rural-urban migration choices and strategies for young married women and men in Vietnam

This report draws together secondary data and informed opinion relating to the wider context in which young married rural-urban migrants must craft strategies for managing their reproductive and family lives. In contrast to long standing patterns of male migration, the increasing numbers of migrants and the emergence of new forms of migration mean that young married women are increasingly moving for work too. The report outlines the wider situation in which these dynamics are occurring: the growing inequalities in the context of doi moi, the declining barrier that household registration poses to mobility, and the changing opportunities for work in the city. It also reviews changing gender relations in Vietnam with particular attention to changes in marriage and marital relations, in sexuality and fertility and in parenting. Finally it explores how changes in social entitlements in Vietnam may affect these migrants with special attention to maternal health, child health and children’s education. The report concludes that migrants with young families and new marriages face a plethora of barriers and opportunities that they must negotiate and that the strategies they formulate are dynamic and involve complex trade-offs

Family strategies and dilemmas for low-income rural-urban labour migrants

This policy brief summarises the findings of a qualitative study into the family relations of labour migrants across their peak child-bearing years. It evidences how wives/mothers and husbands/fathers manage their relations with spouse and children when they have to ‘go away’ for work. These strategies and dilemmas have implications for the impact of migration on the wellbeing both now and over the longer term for Vietnam

Teachers’ feelings of safeness in school-family-community partnerships: Motivations for sustainable development in moral education

This study aims to get insights into teachers' safety feelings in families, schools, and communities’ partnerships to facilitate the Vietnam context’s moral education process. We used a survey method with the instrument having 19 Likert-scale items, namely teachers' feelings of safeness in SFC partnerships (SSFC). The data from 371 Vietnamese teachers followed a simple random sampling strategy. We conduct multiple regression analyses to get insight into the relationship between four groups of variables and teachers' feelings of safeness, namely teachers’ background, collaborated actions between teachers and families, families’ mental encouragement for teachers, and collaborated actions between families and communities. These results find that the school level, collaborated actions between teachers and families, and families’ mental encouragement for teachers are statistically significant to teachers’ feelings of safety. Moreover, the variable group of collaborated actions between teachers and families records the highest positive beta value in multiple regression analyses. In other words, the improvement of collaborated actions between teachers and families is a critical motivation to leverage teachers’ feelings of safeness in SFC partnerships. These results provide valuable information for sustainable development in moral education

Development of a highly sensitive point‐of‐care test for African swine fever that combines EZ‐Fast DNA extraction with LAMP detection: Evaluation using naturally infected swine whole blood samples from Vietnam

[Background] While early detection and early containment are key to controlling the African swine fever (ASF) pandemic, the lack of practical testing methods for use in the field are a major barrier to achieving this feat. [Objectives] To describe the development of a rapid and sensitive point-of-care test (POCT) for ASF, and its evaluation using swine whole blood samples for field settings. [Methods] In total, 89 swine whole blood samples were collected from Vietnamese swine farms and were performed the POCT using a combination of crude DNA extraction and LAMP (loop-mediated isothermal amplification) amplification. [Results] The POCT enabled crude DNA to be extracted from swine whole blood samples within 10 min at extremely low cost and with relative ease. The entire POCT required a maximum of 50 min from the beginning of DNA extraction to final judgment. Compared to a conventional real-time PCR detection, the POCT showed a 1 log reduction in detection sensitivity, but comparable diagnostic sensitivity of 100% (56/56) and diagnostic specificity of 100% (33/33). The POCT was quicker and easier to perform and did not require special equipment. [Conclusions] This POCT is expected to facilitate early diagnosis and containment of ASF invasion into both regions in which it is endemic and eradicated

Safety and efficacy of fluoxetine on functional outcome after acute stroke (AFFINITY): a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial

Background Trials of fluoxetine for recovery after stroke report conflicting results. The Assessment oF FluoxetINe In sTroke recoverY (AFFINITY) trial aimed to show if daily oral fluoxetine for 6 months after stroke improves functional outcome in an ethnically diverse population. Methods AFFINITY was a randomised, parallel-group, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial done in 43 hospital stroke units in Australia (n=29), New Zealand (four), and Vietnam (ten). Eligible patients were adults (aged ≥18 years) with a clinical diagnosis of acute stroke in the previous 2–15 days, brain imaging consistent with ischaemic or haemorrhagic stroke, and a persisting neurological deficit that produced a modified Rankin Scale (mRS) score of 1 or more. Patients were randomly assigned 1:1 via a web-based system using a minimisation algorithm to once daily, oral fluoxetine 20 mg capsules or matching placebo for 6 months. Patients, carers, investigators, and outcome assessors were masked to the treatment allocation. The primary outcome was functional status, measured by the mRS, at 6 months. The primary analysis was an ordinal logistic regression of the mRS at 6 months, adjusted for minimisation variables. Primary and safety analyses were done according to the patient's treatment allocation. The trial is registered with the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry, ACTRN12611000774921. Findings Between Jan 11, 2013, and June 30, 2019, 1280 patients were recruited in Australia (n=532), New Zealand (n=42), and Vietnam (n=706), of whom 642 were randomly assigned to fluoxetine and 638 were randomly assigned to placebo. Mean duration of trial treatment was 167 days (SD 48·1). At 6 months, mRS data were available in 624 (97%) patients in the fluoxetine group and 632 (99%) in the placebo group. The distribution of mRS categories was similar in the fluoxetine and placebo groups (adjusted common odds ratio 0·94, 95% CI 0·76–1·15; p=0·53). Compared with patients in the placebo group, patients in the fluoxetine group had more falls (20 [3%] vs seven [1%]; p=0·018), bone fractures (19 [3%] vs six [1%]; p=0·014), and epileptic seizures (ten [2%] vs two [<1%]; p=0·038) at 6 months. Interpretation Oral fluoxetine 20 mg daily for 6 months after acute stroke did not improve functional outcome and increased the risk of falls, bone fractures, and epileptic seizures. These results do not support the use of fluoxetine to improve functional outcome after stroke

Struggling to Sustain Marriages and Build Families: Mobile Husbands/Wives and Mothers/Fathers in Ha Noi and Ho Chi Minh City

This paper explores the implications of increasingly feminized flows of rural-to-urban migration on the gendered family lives of low-income migrants. We focus on the strategies of migrant with young children through life histories collected in 2008 in the contrasting destinations of Ha Noi and Ho Chi Minh City. We illustrate the trade-offs migrants make in their efforts to maximise earnings/savings and safeguard their children's future. We show that taking advantage of new economic opportunities for these low incomes migrants with young families comes at a cost. The cost is in terms of gendered family relations, social identities and subjective experiences and is strongly gendered

What does migration mean for relations with children and spouses left-behind? Reflections from young married men and women on the move in Vietnam

Whilst newly-wed wives and young mothers have traditionally been ‘tied to the bamboo grove’ in Vietnam, today nearly as many young married women are migrating from rural to urban areas as young married men. This shift implies a radical break with conventional expectations of young married women as new daughters-in-law and as the mothers of young children. It is also closely related with changes in the expectations young married men have of their wives and of their own parenting roles. This paper uses qualitative life histories from 76 married male and female rural-to-urban migrants in their peak child-bearing years to explore their reflections on the impact of migration on their left-behind children and spouses. The migrants subscribe to social norms of family co-residence and justify their absence in terms of fulfilling their parental or marital roles and actively manage their parenting and marital roles in ways that are strongly gendered

Mobile householding and marital dissolution in Vietnam: An inevitable consequence?

The challenges of householding across time and space inevitably strain marital roles and relationships, as well as providing temptations and opportunities for sexual infidelity, and is assumed to increase the propensity for marital breakdown. This paper raises questions about the assumed relationship between migration and marital disruption through qualitative evidence from Vietnam. We focus on 14 men and women migrants with disrupted marriages in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh. We explore their interpretations of the breakdown of their marriages and the role that migration played within this. Long-standing views in Vietnam prioritise the creation and sustaining of household-level social processes over and above couple’s intimacy and emotional relationship and these are highly resilient in the face of extended spousal separation. At the same time, though, some men and some women actively choose to disrupt their marriages where expectations about intimacy, fidelity, and obligations for provisioning and care were not met. We argue that migration plays into experiences of marital disruption in highly divergent ways and experiences of marital disruption and migration are more subtly gendered than is commonly portrayed. In doing so, we seek to contribute to both the literature on householding and to policy thinking about responses to migration