The household registration system known as ho khau has been a part of the fabric of life in Vietnam for over 50 years. The system was used as an instrument of public security, economic planning, and control of migration, at a time when the state played a stronger role in direct management of the economy and the life of its citizens. Although the system has become less rigid over time, concerns persist that ho khau limits the rights and access to public services of those who lack permanent registration in their place of residence. Due largely to data constraints, however, previous discussions about the system have relied largely on anecdotal or partial information. Drawing from historical roots as well as the similar model of China’s hukou, the ho khau system was established in Vietnam in 1964. The 1964 law established the basic parameters of the system: every citizen was to be registered as a resident in one and only household at the place of permanent residence, and movements could take place only with the permission of authorities. Controlling migration to cities was part of the system’s early motivation, and the system’s ties to rationing, public services, and employment made it an effective check on unsanctioned migration. Transfer of one’s ho khau from one place to another was possible in principle but challenging in practice. The force of the system has diminished since the launch of Doi Moi as well as a series of reforms starting in 2006. Most critically, it is no longer necessary to obtain permission from the local authorities in the place of departure to register in a new location. Additionally, obtaining temporary registration status in a new location is no longer difficult. However, in recent years the direction of policy changes regarding ho khau has been varied. A 2013 law explicitly recognized the authority of local authorities to set their own policies regarding registration, and some cities have tightened the requirements for obtaining permanent status. Understanding of the system has been hampered by the fact that those without permanent registration have not appeared in most conventional sources of socioeconomic data. To gather data for this project, a survey of 5000 respondents in five provinces was done in June-July 2015. The samples are representative of the population in 5 provinces – Ho Chi Minh City, Ha Noi, Da Nang, Binh Duong and Dak Nong. Those five provinces/cities are among the provinces with the highest rate of migration as estimated using data from Population Census 2009.
