Fertility Transition in Thailand: A Qualitative Analysis

Abstract

This paper analyzes qualitative information gathered through focus group sessions with men and women who built their families before the Thai fertility decline and with a younger generation whose members are limiting family size to 2 or 3 children. The ultimate aim of the study is to generate qualitative data (perceptions opinions and attitudes) that will complement the quantitative documentation of the ongoing fertility transition in Thailand including its timing and pace. 4 major components are identified all of which interacted to result in an abrupt and rapid shift in reproductive patterns. 1) Fundamental social and economic changes under way in Thailand for some time are responsible in part for the latent demand for fertility control among the older generation and far more so for the current desire for smaller families among the younger. Participants viewed larger numbers of children as a burden with which they are either unable or unwilling to cope. The analysis points to a perceived increase of monetary costs of raising children and a decrease in some benefits. However some participants felt that more was to be gained from rearing few better educated children than from having many less educated ones. 2 The cultural setting is relatively conducive to the acceptance of deliberately regulated fertility and limitation of family size as adaptations to changing circumstances. There exists a prevailing expectation that each conjegal unit will be largely responsible for the support of their ownn children. In addition Thai women enjoy a considerable degree of autonomy and influence over birth control and family size enabling them to effectively take into account their own stake as the bearers and rearers of children. Finally Budddhism as practiced in Thailand also appears to pose no barriers to fertility control. 3) Organized efforts to provide contraception throughout the country met with immediate success largely because of the existence of a receptivity of latent demand for effective and acceptable birth control prior to the widespread availability of contraceptives. 4 The national family planning programs efforts to promote and provide effective modern contraception have facilitated the widespread use of birth control. The analysis shows that the 2 most dynamic components explaining Thailands fertility transition are the set of fundamental social changes that have been taking place and the effect of the family planning program. It is the interaction between these 2 forces both operating within a cultural setting conducive to reporoductive change that has resulted in the rapid and extensive decline of fertility. (summaries in ENG FRE SPA)