There should be a mass communication campaign to raise the people’s awareness of the benefits of joining the voluntary social insurance scheme, particularly when they are getting old.
For instance, couple Nguyen Thi Hoa who sell fruits in Cay Queo market in Binh Thanh District earning VND13 million- VND15 million monthly but they have not participated in the voluntary social insurance despite local administration’s encouragement.
Mrs. Hoa said local administrators did encourage her and her husband to buy voluntary insurance for the sake of us adding that she is 50 years old now while only those participating over 20 years can enjoy pension from the insurance agency.
Grocery trader in Bui Van Ba Street in District 7 Tran Thi Tham said that all her earning is spent on her children’s tuition fee and other activities; hence, she doesn’t have savings for paying social insurance.
According to the Vietnam Social Insurance Agency, social insurance is unattractive which is partly a reason why administrators bumped into difficulties in persuading freelance workers to buy social insurance.
Importantly, the great difference between mandatory social insurance and voluntary social insurance discourages people to buy. Mandatory insurance buyers are entitled to enjoy compensation for a portion of either lost or reduced laborer's income due to sickness, maternity, occupational accidents and occupational diseases, disability, unemployment, old age, and death whereas voluntary social insurers just enjoy compensation for pension and death.
Quite many people have not fully understood the importance of joining in social insurance; plus, their income is low. Consequently, they are indifferent to participating in the social insurance scheme.
According to the insurance agency, around 16,101,000 people have participated in the insurance scheme accounting for 32.6 percent of the number of people in the working age; of whom, 1,068,000 people have participated in voluntary social insurance.
Most densely populated Go Vap District has the self-employed workers in Ho Chi Minh City. Thanks to local administrators, more people have participated in the insurance scheme.
Director of the Insurance Agency of Go Vap District Ho Hai Luan said additional 2,636 people agreed to buy social insurance voluntarily by the end of 2020. The fruitful achievement was thanks to the District People’s Committee, people’s committees in wards, the women union and market management board’s direction.
Mr. Luan explained for the success of Go Vap District that due to impact of the coronavirus pandemic, out-of-work employees felt securer than when they buy social insurance in addition to local government’ encouragement.
Sociologists said that people are not interested in participating in the social insurance scheme just because of long-term payment, not to mention to low compensation for buyers of insurance; therefore, there should be a change to attract more participants.
At a virtual meeting lately on implementation of social insurance task in 2021, Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam ordered the Vietnam Insurance Agency to make more efforts to achievement the set goal that the coverage of social insurance must be 45 percent of the country’s population by 2025 and 35 percent of the residents in the country must participate in unemployment insurance.
Deputy PM Dam requested local administrations and the insurance agency must enhance encouragement and improve people’s awareness of buying insurance.
| On November 21, 2019, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc signed Decision No.1676 to observe May every year as the month for all Vietnamese people to participate in the national social insurance scheme. On May 23, the Vietnam Social Insurance Agency (SIA) launched a month to call on all people nationwide to participate in this scheme. |
