"Kids Are Too Expensive!” How Thailand Became One Of The World's Fastest Aging Countries | Insight

'I feel like my own life is tough enough' - that's it. that's all there is to say.

Pets become children. Children become exotic animals.

A lot of Thai adults are also financially responsible for their aging parents due to the lack of good pension system. If you're a single child that means providing for 3 people (including yourself) even before any kids. No thanks.

"my own life is tough enough" Exactly. I wouldn't want my future child to have to suffer the way I did, just to live. Not even live a life of luxury but to simply live and exist is hard as it is.

Having babies you can't afford isn't going to help anyone except those who are looking to exploit your labor and insecurity. The rich ppl are just concerned that their cheap labor supply will diminish. Dont be easily fooled.

Working women do not want additional responsibilities. Raising a child is no joke. Kids are cute, but expensive and time consuming. The mother has to dedicate big time. I admire those women who can do it.

In Thailand, we say that having a child is a luxury these days. I'm still paying for my daughter's university tuition and living expenses. And I'm only on a meagre teacher's salary. One child is enough for me (to bring up well). No way could I afford to raise two kids in Bangkok, especially.

As a 35 woman in Thailand, I think about this topic a lot. One thing that different about this generation is we don't want our children to take care of us when we are old. The previous generation can expect children to take care of them but this generation needs to think about retirement before children.

It’s just not Thailand it’s everywhere now. Inflation has impacted all of us.

I love how Thai really think about their future child's future. I lived in Thailand for a year and this is something I learned from them

I dont know why society has created a world that makes raising children difficult.

Babies are a liability in a urban society, while it is an asset in a farming society. It seems life choices are effected by financial considerations.

Not just only for Thailand, Hong Kong is same like Thailand. I have no children because I have no money to pay for books, food and living place when I still young ! Now I am old and can not get baby.

Not from Thailand but the world is getting more fucked up, global warming, pandemics and more diseases, more crime. Water shortage, more air pollution (i live in delhi) why would i want to bring a child into this world knowing he will suffer in the future. This also is one of the main reasons for me.

One of the aspects not mentioned here is the "structural" factor that also made Thailand maintain its status as middle-income, the inability to evolve into a sector with better economic growth, as it's also a root cause why lot of Thais (including myself) decided not to have children. Since the crisis of 1997 (nearly 30 years ago), Thailand's economic growth has depended on two major sectors: assembly industrial (e.g. automobile and electronics) and tourism. However, our industries are in decline not only due to China's role as a "global shophouse" that made us less and less competitive, but lots of our expertise (e.g. Hard Disk Drive, and Internal Combustion Cars) became obsolete products with even less export demand. Meanwhile, tourism is highly affected by various external factors such as the global economy or pandemic, and when something wrong occurs, a lot of Farangs, Japanese, and even Malays who would spend for their trip (by their own will or most of their time being scammed) vanish. Looking at other "engines" to help drive our growth: agriculture, which employed one-third of Thai but contributed only one-tenth of GDP and still suffers with a lower yield than competitors (especially rice, even our are better); industries, not enough domestic capital, and technology to invest into high-tech such as biotech or robotics; service, maybe a bit better than Malaysia but much less "sexy" in terms of Geopolitics compared with Singapore. Not to mention that the Thai economy further being beaten down by the military regime for 8 years prior. Without government spending (most of them were paid for salaries) and foreign investments (many being diverted to Vietnam), the Thai economy could hard to find what to stimulate growth. The ones I should blame other than the government are Thai companies. Looking at the Top 100 local companies, most of them are energy, banks, retail, and telecoms which they could not compete elsewhere. With oligopolistic (in the easy words "low competition") status under a sizeable domestic market, their growth and profits are secured without the need or pressure to create more jobs and innovation. While those large companies do not care much about competitiveness (as they could export Baht to anywhere else) or wage hikes (as they could charge us later), many SMEs would suffer from several closures and job loss if they lose only "competitiveness" in terms of cheaper labor cost. Those structural deficiencies left Thailand struck with a "glass ceiling" that we could not increase wages for at least 11 years while inflation rose at 1-2 percent every month. Bringing average income for local Thais (not you Farangs!) is about 7,350 THB for those who receive minimum wages and 15,000 THB for workers with college degrees. Thus, spending is nearly eaten out of the whole payroll. Bangkok and suburbs prices for cheap but not slum studio apartments cost about 4,000 THB per month, low nutrient but edible foods for 50 THB each meal, and two-hour bus transit from CBD to your room may cost about 100 THB daily. Even if you have eaten two meals a day, those already cost you 10,000 THB and you have to pay for electricity, phone bills, and even soap (as we Thais take a shower at least two times a day). This should explain why lots of Thais had no savings (and on the opposite, high rates of household debt), not speak about spending for hobbies, pets, kids, or parents living in outer provinces. Meanwhile, they have no alternative as most job opportunities that provide better pay are concentrated only in Bangkok and its suburbs, Eastern provinces of industrial estates, or traveler's destinations like Chiang Mai or Phuket. On the other hand, the government became not capable to provide of adequate subsidies. As a Thai "middle-class", with my own qualification at least eligible to pay income tax which bottom threshold is earned at least 18,250 THB per month before deduction (that made them pay tax for 1 THB), considering only 4.7 out of 66 million Thais (you can blame this for shadow economy). This means the low proportion of citizens being paid for education, healthcare, and social welfare used by whole countries. Low pools of government income result in adequate services as you have to trade quality with coverages. Furthermore, some aspects of government services had to be paid individually. For example public elementary schools, the average ones cost you about 1,000 - 2,000 THB per semester but you have additional payment for books, stationery, and uniforms !!! which made you pay about 4,000 - 5,000 THB per child. Meanwhile, seeking a better education that later would ensure you a job with a good income will cost a lot more due to hidden costs including housing (most of good schools concentrate in Bangkok), transport (to bring your kids from and to your suburb's houses), tutoring (many university exams require something more "intensive"), and other "social taxes" (to fit in with Bangkokian middle-class society). Even if you had a combined income of about 100,000 THB per month (equal to a couple of auditors - a breed who receive much higher than average income), it became a dilemma to use them for raising kids or saving them for retirement as government safety nets for elders are barely enough for adequate living standards and become more difficult if you suffered with NCDs after a retirement. Even though we suffered minor problems of brain drain (as we absorb many Farangs, Japanese, and Chinese in exchange) and plenty of blue-collar workers from neighboring countries ready for a fill-up in labor-intensive works, solving Thailand's aging problems in the long-run could be possible only with a better economic structure that made ordinary Thai wealthier enough to spend more on elder and kids, and government obtain more taxes to subsidize someone who raises kids and taking care elder for us who don't have though. Better reforms also help us Thai rather than struck into the middle-income trap that made us suffer with both first-world and third-world problems simultaneously, and what our government will do to help solve this for us is a single-shot injection for 10,000 baht and hope our Thai spend more, what a bullshit!

After working in a large city in Thailand, I chose a more quiet place to retire in and that was Isaan. It's interesting as a foreigner to observe the many teenage pregnancies in rural Thailand compared to teenagers living in Bangkok for example. It seems in rural Thailand there isn't any discussion how a girl can say "no" to her young boyfriend who wants to have sex. Unfortunately the grandmother usually gets the responsibly to take care of the child. There doesn't seem to be pressure from village society that the young father of the child needs to financially be responsible for his child though he chooses not to marry the girl he impregnated. And the infidelity rate of young Thai husbands is quite high. These young children growing up without a mother and father is another social problem in rural Thailand. Fortunately the teenager quickly realizes its best to take some type of birth control; thus, having two kids seems to the average in rural Thailand. Note: This is only my opinion and observation)

I went to Thailand alone for 3 months with my 8 month old son and every where we went Men ,women and child would run up to me and say baby!! They would take my son hold him, play with him and take pictures with him. It was like he was a celebrity. I’ve never seen anything like that ❤

people are so tired of being slaves of capitalism. sure the country's total gdp is rising, but mostly for the rich. the poor remains poor.

The answers are same, "child is expensive", "child takes your time". Do not have wrong impression with Indonesia's 2.1 birth rate. The numbers are carried by rurals in which it is uncommon for a woman to give birth to at least 3 children and sometimes 5 children. In the urban, at most, a family only has 1 child, 2 children if wealthy. It is impossible for a family to have a child with no help of family's member or one of parent gives up his/her job. 2 people earnings are just enough to live comfortably. 1 people earning is just enough. 1 people earning with a child is struggling, if there is a break such as covid-19, most won't recover financially.

I live in the USA, and for me, having children is a luxury too! I can barely afford my food, so I can't imagine having children, and I don't want them either! I have a cat, and that's all I need! ❤