Introduction

Vietnam's first COVID-19 case was confirmed on 22 January 2020, with a second wave taking hold from July 2020. The Vietnamese government's initial mitigation strategies included a mandatory quarantine for travelers from COVID-19-affected countries and a strong public health campaign (Ivic, 2020). On 19 March, after a rise in cases, Hanoi People's Committee advised all residents to self-isolate at home until the month's end (Reuters, 2020). This preceded a national lockdown from 1 to 23 April 2020 following Directive 16, which temporarily closed all but essential services, resulting in rapid unemployment increases in both formal and informal sectors (Trần Oanh, 2020).

One of the informal sector groups hit hard by the pandemic and Directive 16 was Hanoi's migrant street vendors (VOA News, 2020). Street vending supports thousands of households in Hanoi and the surrounding hinterland, with those involved – predominantly women – often being rural-to-urban migrants who lack the formal education skills to secure ‘modern’ urban employment. They are drawn to the city due to opportunities to contribute to their broader household livelihoods, especially to pay for farming inputs and children's school fees. Yet, prior to COVID-19, these street vendors were already facing tough conditions, with a 2008 street vending ban covering 62 streets and 48 public spaces in Hanoi's urban core, curtailing access to favorable trading sites (Turner and Schoenberger, 2012). Directive 16 then halted their work completely, at least in theory.

This chapter draws on semi-structured interviews with 31 street vendors in Hanoi completed between May and July 2020 as COVID-19 restrictions relating to the first wave were lifting and before the second wave hit. Twenty-seven of the respondents were migrant vendors, while four were long-term Hanoi residents. We focus predominantly on migrant vendors here, given their already precarious situation on the city's streets, with responses from long-term resident vendors used for comparisons. Of our respondents, 28 were women, representative of street vendors in Hanoi as a whole (and across Vietnam). Our findings are also underscored by long-term research with Hanoi street vendors since 1999. Conceptually, we take an intersectional approach to urban informal livelihoods and inequality, analyzing how the interlaced axes of migrant woman or man, low socio-economic class, and informal worker created specific inequalities and/or barriers for individuals attempting to maintain urban livelihoods during this pandemic.