This study examines the profile and determinants of poverty in the two largest cities in
Vietnam – Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh. Data used in this study are from the 2009 Urban
Poverty Survey. Using the poverty line of 12,000 thousand VND/year, the poverty
incidence is estimated at 17.4 percent for Hanoi and 12.5 percent for Ho Chi Minh (HCM)
city. There is a large proportion of the poor who are found stochastically poor. Hanoi has
higher rates of structurally poverty than HCM city. The proportion of structurally poor and
stochastically non-poor is rather small. Overall, the poor have fewer assets than the nonpoor.
The poor also have poorer housing conditions, especially they have much lower
access to tap water than the non-poor. Heads of the poor households tend to have lower
education and unskilled works than the heads of the non-poor households.