Construction of poverty map for the HCM city in Vietnam using the 2004 VHLSS and the 2004 HCM Mid-Census

The research estimates the poverty rate for the districts in the Ho Chi Minh city in Vietnam using a method of small area estimation and data from Vietnam Household Living Standard Survey 2004, and the 10 percent mid-census sample of HCM city. It is found that poverty estimates are much higher in suburb districts which have a large proportion of rural area. However, the poverty density is smaller in the poorest districts and higher in the richest districts, since the population density is much lower in the poorest districts than in the richest districts. The standard errors of the poverty estimates are relatively high, which makes the comparison of poverty between districts difficult, especially for districts with poverty rates less than 10%. The Gini estimates at the district level are rather small, around 0.3.