Which Children Will Go to Secondary School? Factors Affecting Parents' Decisions in Rural Thailand1

Abstract This study examines parents' decisions about educating some or all of their children beyond primary school in rural Thailand. Their strategies often involve choices between sons and daughters and between older versus younger children. We find that the more children there are in a family, the lower the proportion who are sent to secondary school. Parents send more sons than daughters and more youngest than eldest children. The decision is sometimes associated with a specific “investment” strategy, but it may also reflect parents' ability to afford to send children beyond primary school. Important economic factors include children's perceived earning potentials, anticipated opportunity costs, and parents' poverty status. However, the issues of access to schools and the safety of children, particularly girls, are also critically important. These concerns are often weighed as heavily, or more heavily, than economic considerations.     

Age and birth date reporting in Thailand

Researchers analyzed age and birth data reporting using data on 6775 ever married women 15-49 years old collected between March-June 1987 for the Thailand Demographic and Health Survey. 80% of the women accurately stated their age within 1 year of actual age. Further they could state with at least equal accuracy the birth dates of their children. Moreover the ages of younger children were quite accurate since they stated age in units less than whole years but misreporting increased with children's age. Thus the proportion of children who were really 1 year old but reported to be 1 year old was smaller than that of children who really were 1 year old but reported to be 2 years old. This pattern continued until that time when children's ages were no longer reported in greater detail than whole years. The researchers found that undercounts of younger children occurred when stated age was the basis for age tabulations. Most people in Thailand considered their age to be the difference between the present year and the year of birth. They did not take into account whether the present year's birthday passed or not. This practice resulted in a considerable percentage of the population for whom stated age was 1 year older than completed age. In fact, it was quite common, at least in rural areas, for Thasis to not even acknowledge birthdays. They did tend to know their lunar month and animal birth year, however. In conclusion, this study revealed that age data in Thailand are probably more affected when inquiries occur early in the year than later in the year. The researchers called for constant updating research since the social and cultural dynamics which affect age and birth data reporting are always changing.     

Migrant Interactions With Elderly Parents in Rural Cambodia and Thailand

This paper examines interactions between older adults living in rural areas of Thailand and Cambodia and their adult children. Thai data come from the Survey of the Welfare of the Elderly (N= 3,202 older adults and 17,517 adult children). Cambodia data are from the Survey of the Elderly in Cambodia (N= 777 older adults and 3,751 adult children). Results indicate that older adults in rural areas are not being abandoned, and supportive expressions such as visits and provision of material goods depend on living proximity, characteristics that relate to the needs and dependency of the older adult, and the life circumstances of adult children. These findings support an extension of an altruistic perspective that incorporates notions of vulnerability of older adults.     

Contraceptive Initiation Patterns in Thailand

Data from the Thailand Demographic and Health Survey permit a detailed examination of the pattern of contraceptive initiation in terms both of first post-marital contraceptive use and initiation of use following childbirth. A clear trend towards beginning contraception earlier in the family-building process over the course of the fertility transition is evident. During the earliest stage, contraception was first used mainly after a couple had already achieved their desired family size, but later on couples increasingly began use in order to space births, and most recently it has become common to begin use to delay the start of childbearing. There are two distinctive patterns of contraceptive initiation following childbirth. For women who chose sterilization, initiation occurs during the immediate post partum period, while for those who used other methods, use most commonly began shortly after the return of menses. As a result, few Thai women are at present unprotected against unplanned pregnancies for any substantial period of risk following childbirth. Beginning to use contraception early in the family-building process and rapid adoption of contraception following childbirth are now found in most segments of Thai society, testifying to the maturing of Tailand's fertility transition.     

A cross-national examination of the determinants of self-assessed health

Self-assessed health measures are often utilized in surveys of older adults, and these have been found to be powerful predictors of other health indicators and future health. However, there is still much that is puzzling about the measure. Few studies use comparative techniques to ascertain the determinants of self-assessed health across diverse settings. Using recent data from the Philippines, Taiwan, and Thailand, the current study tests whether determinants of self-assessed health are similar across samples and whether there are distinct country effects acting upon the association. Ordered probit models reveal that, on the one hand, the determinants of self-assessed health are relatively similar across the three countries, while, on the other, the overall probabilities of reporting favorable self-assessed health remain differentiated even when controlling for a broad series of determinants. The results suggest that cultural variation in the interpretation of health may be a factor and that more subtle measures should be included in future studies of this nature.