Rural Family and Urban Jobs in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam

Abstract

For the Vietnamese people in the Delta, family is not only at the core of their daily lives, but it also constitutes the social, economic, and spiritual world that is centered on agriculture. However, today a growing number of people have jobs in urban areas. How does working outside of family farming shape lives of the people in the rural Mekong Delta in Vietnam and how does that affect their family values? The article analyzes how working people’s income is spent, how consumer culture is entering the rural family life, and how new social relationships outside of family is being shaped. A number of studies have been conducted on working children, especially daughters, and their families in East and Southeast Asian societies since the end of the twentieth century. This article offers new insights into the shifting social world of Asian families by adding a particular case of the people in the Mekong Delta, who maintain strong connections to their families under Vietnam’s social transformations.