Young people in many of Thanh Hoa's villages are abandoning the fields to try their chances in bigger cities or other countries, leaving behind villages of old people and children.
Abandoned house
Thanh Hoa is one of Vietnam's three most populous provinces and is the poorest, leaving its young people little alternative than to leave home for work elsewhere -- in Thieu Giao Commune, about 80 percent of the population has gone.
The elderly in the commune said as soon as they reach working age, they leave and this exodus has been going on for decades.
"Since 1993, people started going to southern cities to sell scraps or work freelance," said Le Thi Loan, of Thieu Giao. "They thought that this would be easier than working in the rice fields, and they wanted to earn money. Others followed suit. Some families return to their hometowns once every few years, some are gone for a decade."
Le Duy Thang, chairman of the Thieu Giao Commune People's Committee, said the local population was officially 7,800, but only 2,400 live there, including 900 elderly and 400 children. In the past 20 years, about 4,000 people have moved away.
Thieu Giao Commune now mostly the very old and very young
In Thieu Giao Commune, dozens of hectares of fields lie abandoned because there is no one to work them. When the local authorities tried to encouraged local people to help build infrastructure, there were not enough villagers to make any difference, Thang said.
While a number of children follow their parents to work, the children left behind face have problems getting an education.
Le Thi Hong, head of the Thieu Giao Primary School said, "There was a case in which a child went to school for the first time when he was already eight years old. We even had a case when a third-grader brought his older sister to school for the first time."
Thieu Giao is not the only commune facing depopulation problems. Many people living in coastal districts, such as Hau Loc and Quang Xuong, go overseas, often illegally, to find work, usually in China. People in mountainous communes, such as Hai Van and Mau Lam, cross into Laos and Thailand as illegal labourers.
