BANGKOK, July 16 (TNA)
A leading social research centre said Thailand's population has grown by 300,000 people during the past year, reaching 62.5 million at present.
Associate Professor Pattama Wawattanawong of the Institute of Population and Social Research at Mahidol University, who presented her study on Thailand's future population at a recent seminar on the topic, said the Thai population would increase to 65 million in the next 15 years before it declines due to the country's smaller birth rate.
The study, which the academic had jointly conducted with Professor Pramote Prasartkul, looked into the country's population growth during the next 30 years.
It said with a present birth rate of 0.6 per cent, Thailand's population has grown by 300,000 persons a year. It has predicted that the birth rate would regularly decline every year and would get to the same level as the death rate 15 years from now which would cause no change to the size of the country's population.
The study said after the year 2022, the population will begin to fall, as there will be a larger proportion of aging citizens compared to the population of infants. By then, the birth rate would gradually fall below zero percent.
The researchers said Thailand is producing fewer babies year by year, which will adversely affect the country's social and population structure in the long run when there would be more aging persons than in the younger work force.
Old people constituted 10 per cent of the population last year, and the number will increase to 25 per cent in the next 30 years--or about 16 million people--higher than the projected number of infants.
The study warned that such a foreseeable change would have an impact on the country's economic structure as there would be more older people than babies to look after which would cause some changes in the country's policies in education and health care.
The researchers also predicted that Thailand would have to import foreign workers in the future, as it would face a shortage of younger able-bodied workers.
They said the government needed to begin now to think of creating a welfare system to care for the country's growing older population in the future.
Thai population grows by 300,000 a year, but fewer babies
Thai population grows by 300,000 a year, but fewer babies
I intend to live forever - so far so good.
Birth rates are on the decline in many other places as well. Japan for one for over a decade now, and I believe I read some European country is offering incentives for young couples to have kids....or, maybe it was Australia or New Zealand? Perhaps it's just the natural course of things, Mother Nature balancing the burden on the planet before it collapses. Pete
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JimmyGreaves
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Pete
Congrats!JimmyGreaves wrote:I've helped out the cause. Due End Of The Year -
Chock Dee to the young one on my 100th Post!
We've also doubled our efforts and our second will be due in January.
Who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed? - Hunter S Thompson