News Forum - Thais support state subsidies for childcare, free education to boost birthrate

[Thaiger]

A recent poll conducted by the National Institute of Development Administration (NIDA) reveals that most Thais are advocating for state subsidies for childcare and free education to encourage childbearing amidst Thailand’s transition into an ageing society with a declining birthrate. The poll was carried out from September 26 to 28, with 1,310 participants aged 18-40 … …

The story Thais support state subsidies for childcare, free education to boost birthrate as seen on Thaiger News.

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[Karolyn]

Ban all abortion that can't be justified by prosocial appeals or emergencies. And expect women to be mothers before embarking careers or higher education. Women who have a higher IQ than average, are lost to the birthrate. They tend to postpone childbearing until fertility is past peak, and it already starts to decline ~27, before slumping years later.

Obviously the 20s are the optimum decade of life, for motherhood. I would suggest ages 14-17 to 26 as the best age from which to consider motherhood, or started from when the periods are first regular and the pelvic opening sufficiently grown for safe childbirth; up to the first drop in fertility, the point in life at which women mature, from their mid to late twenties.

Too much of the culture surrounding intelligent young women, interferes with their nature as women. As mothers. 

[Khunmark]

Decline of the birth rate is a good thing. The planet needs less humans not more.

[HolyCowCm]

4 minutes ago, Khunmark said:

Decline of the birth rate is a good thing. The planet needs less humans not more.

Agree. 

[Karolyn]

1 hour ago, Khunmark said:

Decline of the birth rate is a good thing. The planet needs less humans not more.

It needs a stable population, not too much to exceed carrying capacity, but enough to maintain itself. Due to people who don't reproduce, the birthrate must >2 even if kept low.

[Khunmark]

54 minutes ago, Karolyn said:

It needs a stable population, not too much to exceed carrying capacity, but enough to maintain itself. Due to people who don't reproduce, the birthrate must >2 even if kept low.

Have you spoken to other animal species about this?

[Karolyn]

6 minutes ago, Khunmark said:

Have you spoken to other animal species about this?

Funny thing is, everything in nature optimises for it's own survival, no? 

[Guest1]

6 hours ago, Thaiger said:

amidst Thailand’s transition into an ageing society with a declining birthrate.

So they wanna make the same mistake, like totally uneducated countries?

The  aging society is "the price" for better healthcare, but rising the population, is not making that better. Till the max ageing "options" are reached, even the "boomer" generation will become  the ageing society, in 60 years. 

How you wanna deal with that? Giving more birth, again, and again, and again?

The result is to spot in Africa, where in the past 70 years the population was growing from 350 million to 1,4 billion people. And, because of still better health and food programs from the richer countries, they will become 2,5 to 3 billion people till 2050 or 2070! How big should Thailands population grow, before they find the  solution, that it will equal as soon as births and deaths  are in the same numbers range?

And Thailand is just starting with a pension system, they still do not have the  big disadvantage of the western countries. Who desperately trying to find a way, how to deal with this pension encumbrances

Find a way to "live with it", till that ageing reaches the top numbers, meaning, death and birth toll is "same same"

[EdwardV]

3 hours ago, Khunmark said:

Decline of the birth rate is a good thing. The planet needs less humans not more.

Demographics plays out over generations. The coming decline in world population was baked into the equation 30 plus years ago. If the worry is the planet, and I’m not disagreeing with you, then the concern should be directed at those countries with increasing growth rates. Not those like Thailand who will is losing population regardless of what they do to try and stop it. 

Speaking of which arresting population decline has proven next to impossible just about everywhere tried. Few countries have shown much success and those who have like France and Sweden only do so through huge subsidies and even then it’s has proven fleeting at best. Thailand like most with this problem worry if they can’t fix the issue, there won’t be enough young people to pay for the older generations in retirement. And that’s a scary situation. 

[EdwardV]

8 minutes ago, Guest1 said:

Till the max ageing "options" are reached, even the "boomer" generation will become  the ageing society, in 60 years. 

Not that I’m disagreeing with your statement. Just pointing out in 60 years all the boomers will be dead. The mid point of the boomer generation is already in retirement, and the last of the boomers will enter its 60s in just a couple of years. 

[Guest1]

2 hours ago, EdwardV said:

Not that I’m disagreeing with your statement. Just pointing out in 60 years all the boomers will be dead. The mid point of the boomer generation is already in retirement, and the last of the boomers will enter its 60s in just a couple of years. 

Not talking about this boomers, just talking about the boomers, the Thais seem to wanna generate, now.

You do understand, that the boomers you are talking about, is a western problem, that is already happening.

Another point, the Thais could look at, before doing this mistakes themself

[EdwardV]

1 hour ago, Guest1 said:

You do understand, that the boomers you are talking about, is a western problem, that is already happening.

The definition of boomer aside, it doesn’t really matter. Collapsing birth rates are a direct result of mass urbanization. Richer counties than Thailand have offered more and  it hasn’t stopped the decline. On top of that, it takes 20 years and 9 months to make a productive member of the workforce. Whatever ills lay ahead for Thailand economical and socially are already baked in. If Thailand wanted to fix this problem they needed to start 20-30 years ago. 

[Karolyn]

4 hours ago, EdwardV said:

The definition of boomer aside, it doesn’t really matter. Collapsing birth rates are a direct result of mass urbanization. Richer counties than Thailand have offered more and  it hasn’t stopped the decline. On top of that, it takes 20 years and 9 months to make a productive member of the workforce. Whatever ills lay ahead for Thailand economical and socially are already baked in. If Thailand wanted to fix this problem they needed to start 20-30 years ago. 

Just curtail the effects of female education, and of the sexual revolution? 

[Khunmark]

12 hours ago, Karolyn said:

Funny thing is, everything in nature optimises for it's own survival, no? 

And some, in doing so, result in a net cost to other inhabitants of the planet (and their own species). Of which humans are peerless. Let’s face facts, humans exhibit the same characteristics as weeds;  strong colonizing abilities, resilience, tenacity, a capacity to adapt to environmental instabilities and the propensity to manipulate environments in a manner detrimental to other existing species. And you think we need more?

 

[Khunmark]

12 hours ago, EdwardV said:

Demographics plays out over generations. The coming decline in world population was baked into the equation 30 plus years ago. If the worry is the planet, and I’m not disagreeing with you, then the concern should be directed at those countries with increasing growth rates. Not those like Thailand who will is losing population regardless of what they do to try and stop it. 

Speaking of which arresting population decline has proven next to impossible just about everywhere tried. Few countries have shown much success and those who have like France and Sweden only do so through huge subsidies and even then it’s has proven fleeting at best. Thailand like most with this problem worry if they can’t fix the issue, there won’t be enough young people to pay for the older generations in retirement. And that’s a scary situation. 

I agree with you. And what’s behind the concerns? The time honoured mantra of economic growth.

[EdwardV]

1 hour ago, Khunmark said:

And what’s behind the concerns? The time honoured mantra of economic growth.

It creates huge stresses on the national budget. As best I can tell, Thailand like most countries run a pay as you go (I call it a pay forward) method of funding it's national pension/health care systems. The young who use very little of it, pay for those who use a lot of it (read the old). When you have lots of young people and few old, the system works well enough. Decrease the young and increase the old, the system doesn't work at all. You then add in the decrease in working age adults as the average age increases, and it creates wage inflation. That in turn makes its exports less competitive. The only SE Asian country with an older demographic than Thailand is Singapore. There is also a large gap between it and the next country of Vietnam. 

https://www.statista.com/statistics/590942/median-age-of-the-population-in-south-east-asia/

 

 

 

 

[Khunmark]

1 hour ago, EdwardV said:

It creates huge stresses on the national budget. As best I can tell, Thailand like most countries run a pay as you go (I call it a pay forward) method of funding it's national pension/health care systems. The young who use very little of it, pay for those who use a lot of it (read the old). When you have lots of young people and few old, the system works well enough. Decrease the young and increase the old, the system doesn't work at all. You then add in the decrease in working age adults as the average age increases, and it creates wage inflation. That in turn makes its exports less competitive. The only SE Asian country with an older demographic than Thailand is Singapore. There is also a large gap between it and the next country of Vietnam. 

https://www.statista.com/statistics/590942/median-age-of-the-population-in-south-east-asia/

It is true the burden is increasing carried by the wage earning tax payers. But it doesn’t have to be that way. There are numerous instruments at a governments disposal to ameliorate that burden. Taxing wealth over income, introducing a robust immigration policy to meet sector demand, lifting the retirement age or incentivising delayed retirement and rethinking the way end of life is handled, with less of a focus on medicalising care.

[EdwardV]

13 minutes ago, Khunmark said:

Taxing wealth over income, introducing a robust immigration policy to meet sector demand, lifting the retirement age or incentivising delayed retirement and rethinking the way end of life is handled, with less of a focus on medicalising care.

All of that is true, but there are also issues with each one. Take for example the idea of taxing wealth. Some wealth is generated from income and therefore already taxed. So does it get double taxed? Other wealth is made up of unrealized gains. That’s not real money, at least not until it’s sold. You are basically taxing money someone doesn’t actually have. That can force people to start selling assets to pay taxes. However at that point it might not generate as much as the value it was taxed at creating a loss. There is also the issue of selling assets driving down the value of the asset, once again creating a loss. You also have the issue of capital destruction. Most private capital is derived from private wealth. Decrease wealth will decrease available capital and that affects development and growth. You risk creating your own doom  loop. 

I don’t disagree something needs to be done. Just there is a reason it’s so hard to do. 

[Karolyn]

4 hours ago, Khunmark said:

And some, in doing so, result in a net cost to other inhabitants of the planet (and their own species). Of which humans are peerless. Let’s face facts, humans exhibit the same characteristics as weeds;  strong colonizing abilities, resilience, tenacity, a capacity to adapt to environmental instabilities and the propensity to manipulate environments in a manner detrimental to other existing species. And you think we need more?

But weeds aren't evil. No one wants to limit the proliferation of weeds, except to manage crop fields. Only with humans do we condemn survival, treating humans as different, and it's very anthropocentric.