Migration is by no means new and alien to Vietnamese, since three-fifths of the territory of present-day Vietnam was obtained mainly by migration of the Vietnamese people over the centuries, a movement well known as nam tien (southward expansion). Migration is one of the most significant features of Vietnamese history, and the natural increase or decrease of the population was remarkably influenced by it from time to time.

Migration became a more frequent phenomenon during the French colonial period. Basically there were three categories, rural-urban migration, periodic movement between small-scale subsistence cultivation and the plantation and mining areas that were owned and operated by the French, and seasonal migration between various agricultural areas during the planting and harvest seasons in search of temporary employment. The last category seems to be of the largest volume. The principal centre of demand for seasonal migration of wage labourers was the rice-cultivation zone, which stretched over the provinces of Ha Dong. Ha Nam, Nam Dinh and Ninh Binh. The local labour force was insufficient to ensure that harvesting would be accomplished quickly enough before crops were lost to heavy storms and considerable flooding. Another centre of demand for seasonal migrant labour was in the highlands that extended along the rim of the Red River delta. Seasonal migrations were able to take place because harvests occurred at different times and places in the delta. Thompson estimated that by the mid-1930s at least two-thirds of Tonkinese had moved around to be employed as temporary informal workers for part of the year, for “[s]easonal migrations are the rule in over-populated districts”

Rural–urban migration at the time might have a more permanent nature. By 1905, Tonkin alone had at least 85 separate industrial enterprises, concentrated in the Hanoi and Haiphong regions, which employed more than 12,000 workers, miners not included.

Changes in Vietnam since the late 1980s have by now been well-documented. Four institutional changes, however, are basic elements relevant to the current labour force movement in Vietnam.

Relevant Factors

The first is the policy of decollectivizing the land — the khoan muoi (Contract 10) or khoan ho (household contract) which finally accepted that the family was the basic unit in the rural economy in 1988, and land was distributed to individual families.