Population Ageing and the Well-Being of Older Persons in Thailand ...

Section 5: Family support and intergenerational exchanges
agency is also at play and likely moderates negative
impacts. Figure 5.7 shows the probabilities that any
individual adult child will co-reside or will live in
another province according adult sibship size (i.e. the
number of adult children their parents have). The
results make clear that decisions to leave the parental
household as well as to migrate out of the province
are not made independently of family size. Thus the
probability of an adult child co-residing is by far the
highest among adult children who are only children
and decreases steadily as the number of siblings
increases. Likewise, the probability of living outside
the parental province is noticeably lower for those who
are only children and increases with the number of
siblings. The fact that those who are only children
are considerably less likely to leave the parental
household or to move a substantial distance away
suggests that concern about leaving parents without a
child nearby influences the decision to move out or
to migrate. This may moderate the impact that
declining family size has on leaving elderly parents on
their own.
5.5 Future expectations of filial support
A special survey of adults aged 18 to 59 conducted in
conjunction with the 2007 Survey of Older Persons
in Thailand provides evidence of the extent to which
the current generation of adults continue to expect
that their children will provide financial support to
them when they reach old age. Figure 5.8 presents
the results. The results clearly indicate that
expectations of filial support are shared widely even
by young adults. Thus among adults under age 30,
almost three fourths expect to receive financial
support from children in old age and among those
who had ever married (i.e. the ones most likely to have
children), four fifths expect such support. Also
impressive is that almost 90 per cent of ever married
persons aged 50-59 ( i.e. those who will enter the
elderly age span in the next decade) expect such
support. 24 Of course expectations may change in the
future if older persons’ abilities to support
themselves increase or the sense of obligation of
children to support parents decreases. Nevertheless,
these results suggest that despite the major social and
economic changes that have characterized Thai
society, the normative foundation of family support
for older persons still widely persists.
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