BAAN DONG
BANG, Thailand -- For the past three years, Boonterm Chaila has puttered around
on his improvised three-wheel motorcycle spreading two messages across five
provinces in Thailand's rice-growing northeast region. One is that smaller
paddy plots are better. The other promotes crop diversification. Both messages
are aimed at villagers like Boonterm himself, a graying, weather-beaten
69-year-old former farmer, who wanted to help others who continue to till the
soil well into old age.
Boonterm,
who runs a community organization promoting healthy living and local wisdom,
sees his communications efforts as part of a grassroots strategy to help
Thailand's rural population cope better with farming problems that become
harder to resolve with age.
"Farmers
will not stop because of age, so we need to come up with a way of working that
is suitable for older people," he explained over fresh mangoes in Baan
Dong Bang, his village in Thailand's northeastern province of Khon Kaen. This
view has struck a chord among the area's aging farmers, many of whom rely on
their plots for staple foods. "What else could I do?," asked Supin
Janthattoom, an 81-year-old fellow villager who only retired from cultivating
rice when he was 79.
Baan Dong
Bang has the highest proportion of over 60s of any village in Khon Kaen: 110
residents out of 149 families. But many other villages across the province resemble
old-age communities, with elderly people standing at the doors to their homes,
walking slowly along the roads or seated in salas, the Thai-style pavilions at
the center of most villages. Few young people are to be seen.
For Thai
policymakers, this is a worrying picture. Khon Kaen and nearby Nakhon
Ratchasima have become gray terrain much faster than most other provinces. But
the rest of the country is catching up: 10 million Thais are 60 years old or
more, accounting for 15% of the population, and the proportion is forecast to
grow to 20% by 2020. That will make Thailand one of the fastest aging societies
in Southeast Asia.
"In
2025 Thailand will be hit with a tsunami of challenges to care for the
elderly," said Montree Prasertrungruang, a rural population expert at Khon
Kaen University, summing up a crisis that has crept up silently but is now
causing anxiety among policymakers. It took 115 years for the proportion of
over 60s in France's populatoin to grow from 7% to 14%, but Thailand is
undergoing a similar change in a period of just 20 years, Montree told the
Nikkei Asian Review. "The Thai state is unprepared to handle these
numbers," he said.
Khon Kaen
city, the capital of the province, illustrates one result: a rapid spike in
public health budgets for the elderly. Across the province, the cost of support
for elderly urban residents rose from 60 million baht ($1.71 million) in 2012
to 90 million baht in 2016, according to official records. But Khon Kaen
municipality's health expenses for the elderly rose even more quickly -- from 1
million baht in 2012 to 2 million baht this year. Somporn Chaiayuth, director
of the municipality's public health division, attributes this to "many
more health problems among the elderly and a rise in their numbers."
Health injection
Out in
the provinces, the country's impressive network of public health centers is
feeling the pressure from this graying population bulge. Treatment for senior
citizens under the government-subsidized universal health care program for
chronic diseases, diabetes, hypertension, high blood pressure and eye problems
is on the rise. One center that covers 13 villages has 8,000 registered
residents and regularly sees 944 elderly patients. The caregivers grumble that
they are understaffed. "We don't have the expert doctors to deal with
elderly patients," a registered nurse complained. "The situation is
getting worse."
A spate
of recent official announcements conveys the magnitude of the social crisis
that policymakers are now waking up to. The ruling military regime approved an
additional 600 million Thai baht in early April to supplement healthcare costs
for the elderly. The country's 1,000 municipalities are to get the lion's
share. Yet, this midyear injection into
public health spending exceeds the 500 million baht that the National
Health Security Office had originally set aside this year for home-based care
of 100,000 elderly patients.
In
addition, there is a growing clamor for direct payments to the elderly. One
urban activist group is urging Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, head of the
military backed government, to allocate 2,500 baht per month for each elderly
citizen as a state-supported pension. Currently, Thais who reach 60 are
entitled to a 600 baht government payment monthly, growing to 1,000 baht a
month with advancing age.
The
debate over pensions has exposed a worrying feature of personal finance and
savings in the country. According to officials at the National Economic and
Social Development Board, a government think tank, an estimated 65% of elderly
Thais lack retirement savings. The government has begun to implement a program
for the elderly, "but this is late and will take time," said
Porametee Vimonsiri, secretary-general of the NESDB. The issue underscores the
daunting task facing Thailand -- a developing country that is getting old
before it gets rich, and lacks the resources available to developed countries
such as Japan and Germany that are dealing with similar demographic problems.
Analysts
are also warning that Thailand risks an economic downturn as farming
communities are transformed into gray zones, with particular concerns emerging
about the plight facing households led by elderly people in rural areas. The
agricultural sector employs 33% of the 36 million labor force, with the average
age of the farmer now a ripe 52 years; many work into their mid-70s.
There are
two major explanations for the rapid depopulation of farming areas. One is
Thailand's low fertility rate, which at 1.4 children per woman is well below
the rate needed to sustain current population numbers. The second is the allure
of wages in less hostile environments in Thailand's manufacturing, industrial
and service businesses, which has generated a population drift to urban areas.
Bangkok taxis are a testament to the draw of the cities: Farmer's sons from
Isaan, as the northeastern rice-growing plateau is known, are the drivers most
likely to be found behind the wheels of the capital's fluorescent colored cabs.
Attempts
to reverse these trends are unlikely to succeed: "Thailand's demographic
dividend [a period of rapid growth in the productive workforce] peaked in 2010,
and Thailand has been going downhill the past six years," said a foreign
researcher at an international financial services company, who asked not to be
named. On present trends, Thailand's workforce is expected to shrink by 10%
over the 30 years from 2010 to 2040, which could reduce the country's rate of
economic growth.
Meanwhile,
Khon Kaen's pioneering role in grappling with these new concerns has made it an
essential pit stop for officials from other cities. Bureaucrats from Phuket,
the resort island in southern Thailand, were among those who came on a recent
study tour. They left with colorful brochures describing the municipality's
blueprint for its three types of ageing residents -- those who still go out,
those who stay at home, and those who are bed-ridden.
Marwaan
Macan-Markar
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