The Promoting Work Strategy for Thai Aging

Abstract

This strategic research for promoting work among Thai elders is conducted to explore work and its characteristics among Thai adults and elders, investigate Thai adults and elders’ attitudes toward work and the need for work supports, and propose work promotion strategies for Thai adults and elders. Ultimately, this research aims to promote consistently self-reliant and sustainable careers among Thai adults and elders.

Various research methods are employed in this research. These are document research, quantitative research and qualitative research which includes focus-group discussions and in-depth interviews. Research sample groups for the quantitative research using questionnaires are Thai adults and elders with the age between 55 – 65 years who are informal labors or unemployed. Participants in the focus-group discussions are representatives from various local agencies which are responsible for promoting work among local adults and elders such as provincial Social Development and Human Security offices, provincial labor offices, local administrative officers and local elders’ clubs. Lastly, in-depth interviews are conducted with experts in labor and elder from various agencies and educational institutions.

              The results show that work of Thai elders is currently increasing. Most of them are informal labors with primary or lower education. Their occupations are mostly farmers, manual labors and merchants. Since these occupations are unskilled and unstable, many of Thai elders are stuck in poverty. The main reason for doing these occupations is economical – they need to take care of their families and themselves when their incomes are insufficient. Most of their income sources are from jobs, elderly welfare, their children and spouses. Most of the sample groups have positive attitude towards elderly work especially economic attitude and work attitude. When comparing several relevant factors, the elders (60 – 65 years) have higher attitude scores than the adults (55 – 59 years); and those who are working or have more than 5 years of experience have better attitude scores than those who have never worked or those who are unemployed. Regarding to the need for work supports, most of the sample groups state that they need medical welfare, income and job security, and better workplace environment.

              In the quantitative research, there are 3 sample groups: 1) currently working and still wish to continue working, 2) currently working but wish not to continue working, and 3) those who do not work but wish to work in the future. The results reveal reasons to work in each sample group. The first group still wish to work because their health was still good, and they have certain economic reasons. The second group wish not to continue working due to certain health conditions and their families do not want them to work anymore. The third group wish to work in the future because they have more family burden, or they were neglected. The suitable work for these elders is the one that is not performance or labor demanding. The work must also be flexible in time and place. Supporting factors for elderly work are skills/experience of the elders, ability to learn new work which is not beyond their capabilities, work-promotion policies from the government and participations from various state agencies. For the obstacles in elderly work, they are health problems, lack of elderly database, low market demand for elderly-made products and lack of integration among government agencies.

Experts and scholars from in-depth interviews agree in work quality promotion such as labor upskilling and market expansion, while they have different opinions in work quantity promotion since there are vastly amounts of Thai adults and elders who are informal labors that can set their own work duration. The appropriate work promotion policies are preparing elders’ health conditions and skills, database management and improving integration among state agencies.

Therefore, this research proposes 5 strategies to promote elderly work:

1. Setup local elderly databases
2. Create the value which promotes elderly work
3. Promote agency integration regarding to elderly work
4. Promote and develop comprehensive careers for elders
5. Improve work protection for elders

                       Additional recommendations for the work development are building financial security and stability since the early working age, promoting second jobs in order to gain skills and experience for the work continuity, and implementing these five strategies in pilot areas before further implementation.