The pattern and determinants of living arrangement among elderly in Vietnam, 2011

Abstract

Background: living arrangement plays an important role for the well-being of older people, especially in Vietnam, where the responsibility to take care of the elderly rest largely on the family. Given the context that the population in Vietnam is aging rapidly, any changes related to living arrangement of the elderly may take it tolls on the government and society. Therefore, study related to living arrangement is important. In Vietnam, numbers of studies regarding living arrangement has increased slightly over the past decades but mostly are descriptive studies and few studies explored the determinants of living arrangement. In addition, very few studies explored the children’s characteristics as a component of the determinants of living arrangement among the elderly.

Objectives: this study describes the patterns of living arrangements of the elderly and examines the determinants of living arrangements among the elderly in a greater depth compared to the previous studies in Vietnam.

Methods: data came from a national-representative survey for the elderly in Vietnam in 2011. Logistic regression were applied to explore the factors affecting living with children versus living with others. Multinomial logistic regression were used to examine the factors associated with various types of living arrangement, which include living with children, living alone, living with spouse only and living with other people.

Result: the finding reveals that living in the South or in urban area, having unmarried children or married son resulted in higher the odds of living with children. While gender, education, home ownership as well as employment status of children correlated with higher risk of living alone, living with spouse only and living with other people.