Determinants of Educational Attainment in Rural Thailand: A Life Course Approach

Using data from rural Thailand, we examine the determinants of educational attainment of school-age children. We organize our analysis around three central principles of the life course perspective: the embeddedness of lives in historical time and place, linked or interconnected lives, and the timing of lives. We examine these principles using comparisons within cohorts and between cohorts. We find that educational attainment is related to a combination of factors related to each of these principles. Specifically, despite a serious economic downturn occurring midway through our study, we nonetheless found that educational levels were higher following the downturn than preceding it. Interconnections to parents and siblings also affected educational outcomes, as did the timing of life events such as migration, marriage, and childbearing. For the latter, mother??s education and migration both positively affected educational attainment. For the former, having more siblings, both those in the household and those migrating, reduced education.