The Commitment of Household Helpers to House Owners: Research in Hanoi, Vietnam

Abstract

This paper examines the commitment of household helpers to house owners mainly based on research in Hanoi. Its objective is aimed at finding out the circumstance of helper's commitment and which factors influencing. To do so, both quantitative and qualitative analysis methods are used to draw factors affecting the commitment. Descriptive statistics and correlated regression analysis are used to point out the factors that affect the cohesion of household workers with homeowners. Besides secondary data from newspapers, researches, reports from GFCD and ILO, primary data are collected from survey handed out to 161 household helpers and in-depth interview with ten helpers in Hanoi. The results of research indicate that there are four factors affecting the commitment including: income; assigned job; the owners' care, trust and treating; and opinion on helper as an occupation. This study concludes that commitment of household helpers is heavily impacted by both the within the employment relationship and the influence from the outside; the current commitment level of helpers is not high; to improve the commitment in the future the combined effort from both parties should be taken into account. House owners should use helpers legally, respect and actively make good relationships with them; Household helpers should pay attention to update legal knowledge, social understanding to improve job awareness, occupation and life and develop themselves. In addition, job placement centres and labour management agencies should communicate through sharing and discussion, have suitable ways in which messages can be incorporated into applicable policies and regulations. That leads to facilitate proper custody of the housekeeper.