Thailand Social Monitor

These have included

• Social capital: what should be the role of family and community in providing social safety net services to Thais in need? What kind of social protection system should Thailand build in preparation for future downturns or other economic shocks. Were existing and new forms of Thai social capital that arose in response to the crisis adequate to protect those in greatest need? Did any forms of social capital erode during the crisis, leaving some Thai families without any hope or support? If true, are these weaknesses in social capital and the “informal” social safety net something the Government should seek to strengthen with formal government programs, at taxpayer expense? Report studied data on suicide, orphans, divorce, crime, and family structure, as well as ways that families and communities came together—or broke apart—during the crisis. Found that
  • Divorce rates in Thailand skyrocketed after the crisis, and suicides increased dramatically.
  • Thai children may have suffered the most as a result of the crisis. The number of infants abandoned after birth increased during the crisis, and the number of children placed in orphanages also showed a similar upswing
  • a high number of children falling into the “drug trap,” as both users and sellers.
  • Crime is up in Thailand. There was a dramatic rise in arrests for drug related criminal activity from 1997 to 1998. And while the level of violent crimes remained at pre-crisis levels in 1998, arrests for property crimes, and specifically theft, increased dramatically in 1998.
  • at both the family and community levels, social capital institutions that form the traditional, non-formal safety net were used extensively and even expanded. For instance, Thai families have continued to help each other with cash gifts and remittances during the crisis; better off Thai families on average continued to help their poorer friends and relatives
  • At the household level, Thai families continued to protect their essential expenditures on necessities, their children’s education, and basic health needs. Thai families managed household budgets to cut back on luxury purchases and “vices” such as alcohol and tobacco
• Education and health: impacts and responses in theeducation and health sectors from the perspective of outcomes, government spending, household spending and household utilization of services.
• Challeges for social reform: how Thailand used the crisis as an opportunity for accelerating the social reform agenda. family values and behaviors.

[adapted from WBank]