Migration to small rural towns in Thailand

This.work is an analysis of migration to and from small rural towns in Thailand using three sources of data: the 1980 Census of Thailand, a survey of 15 small rural towns and the community-level data. The small rural towns are defined as rural sanitary districts with a population between 1,500 and 5,000. The objectives of the study are mainly concerned with the patterns, the determinants and the consequences of migration to and from the towns. Special attention is also directed to examining the relationship of the patterns of migration with the development level of the towns or their characteristics. Migration to rural towns tends to be from rural areas, a short-distance movement, family migration, and maledominated. The most distinctive pattern is that the towns are more likely to draw their administrative elites and professionals from other towns or cities compared with other categories of residence in the Thai urban hierarchy. This may affect the development process in the towns since the elites tend to be concerned only with their routine work and serve the needs of the central ministries not the needs of local people. The main reason for migration to rural towns was commonly a family-related reason for first-time migrants, long-term migrants and female migrants. Work-related reasons appeared to be the outstanding reasons for male repeat migrants and most male migrants moving from urban areas. However, the majority of migrants said that the presence of kin or friends in the towns was an important factor influencing their migration decision when they were asked about their secondary reasons for migration. Also, a higher level of development in the towns than in the countryside had a significant impact on the migration decision making of many migrants moving from villages. The two most common reasons for out-migration from rural towns were work-related reasons and education. The propensity to migrate out of the towns either permanently or temporarily was obvious among those who were students at,the time of the interview. This is mainly because secondary education is generally the highest level of education provided in the rural towns. Migration from rural towns whether it was a short-term move or long-term move tends to be towards larger towns, namely municipal areas or the capital city. The changes in socio-economic characteristics and improvement in living conditions after migration to rural towns indicate that on average, both return and in-migrants benefited from the changes and experienced considerable improvement. Migrants to rural towns experienced an increase in the positive changes with increasing duration of residence. Non-migrants are used as a reference group to assess migrant adjustment. Living situations in relation to home ownership, housing quality and consumer durables of the household tend to be better for non-migrants and return migrants than for recent and long-term migrants. But occupational prestige of migrants and non-migrants does not differ significantly after controlling for socio-economic characteristics. The majority of migrants felt no difficulties in adapting to life in rural towns because most migrants came from a similar cultural background as they tended to move from the areas near the towns. The development level of the towns shows a positive relationship to the level of in-migration but not the level of out-migration. The sex ratio of migrants to the more developed towns favours females. However, the effect of structure or characteristics of the towns on retaining people in the towns is not very pronounced. The outstanding factor found to have a high and positive relationship to people’s intention to remain in the towns is 'satisfaction with life'. Attempts to increase the level of community satisfaction is thus highly recommended for policies concerned encouraging people to remain in their hometowns or villages. To decentralise power to local people is seen as a way to achieve this goal and to support the ideology of development from below