The government is pushing for a new national agenda: trying to convince and incentivize more Thais to procreate. In the words of Health Department Director General Atchara Nitiapinyasakul warns on Saturday Thais need to have more babies or there will be a shortage of workers and taxpayers six decades from now.
She said in 2022, for the first time, more Thais died than were born: 500,000 versus 480,000. And if the trend continues, the Thai population will decrease from 65 to 63 million six decades from now, with 18 million being elderly people versus 14 million working-age population.
Giving a talk in Phetchabun province, she went on to tell the audience to imagine having no Thai pilots, flight attendants at the airport or doctors at hospital. Thailand, she adds, can either follow the Singaporean way by importing more migrant workers, she said, as many Singaporeans no longer want to have babies and their government has failed to convince them otherwise, or go the Swedish way which has been successful in encouraging more procreation among Swedes over the past decade through various incentives.
She is not alone. Public Health Minister Cholnan Srikaew and the government are fully behind the new policy. While details have yet to be announced as to what are the measures and incentives to be given in an attempt to reverse the population decrease, the government would do well to ask themselves why many Thais now no longer want to have children, or more children, and seriously question the need to continue to have population growth given the world’s dwindling natural resources.
Credit: http://kaosodenglish.com
