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

12
In this report we consider both those who cannot
perform the activity or can only perform the
activity with assistance or an aid as having a
functional limitation with respect to the activity.
13
Among all respondents age 60 and over, only one
per cent were coded as needing assistance but not
receiving it while 88 per cent were coded as doing
these activities by themselves with no qualification.
14
Because of data problems, estimates of living
arrangements at the time of the 2002 Survey of
Older Persons in Thailand are estimated
primarily from the concurrent round of the Labour
Force Survey (see Knodel et al. 2005).
15
In the vast majority of cases, coresidence involves
at least one adult child, For example, in 2007,
less that two per cent of coresident elderly lived
with children who all were under age 18.
16
Since a child in-law can serve many of the same
functions as an elderly person’s own married child
and in this table we include the one per cent of
cases in which an older person lives with a child
in-law but not with a married child in the same
category as living with a married child.
17
In some of these households there will be single
children of the grandparent but it is highly un
likely that any would be the parents the
grandchildren. At the same time, situations in
which a married child is present but grandchildren
from a non co-resident child are also present will
not be included.
18
The purpose of the latter measure is to determine
if the gender of the grandparent affects the
presence of grandchildren without parents. This
is not possible to determine if both grandparents
are present but should be apparent from
comparisons of situations where only one is
present.
19
The lack of change in dependence on children as
a main source of income is confirmed by both the
1986 Socio-Economic Consequences of the
Aging of the Population in Thailand survey and
the 1995 Survey of Welfare of Elderly in
Thailand which find similar proportions of older
persons saying that children are their main source
of income (Knodel et al. 2000)
20
For example, among elderly parents with at least
one non co-resident child, 65 per cent who live
in skip generation households receive remittances
of 5000 baht or more compared to only 48 per
cent who are not in a skip generation household.
21
The survey question does not specify which
children provide money. Thus for parents who live
with co-resident children the money may be
provided by a non co-resident child; for categories
of non co-resident children, the nearest one is not
necessarily the one providing the money.
22
The survey question asks collectively about visits
from non co-resident children. Presumably for
parents with multiple non co-resident children,
responses refer to highest frequency of any of the
children although possibly some respondents state
an average frequency for all non co-resident
children.
23
E-mail contact, which is extremely rare, and
letters for which there is no information are not
taken into account.
24
Only modest differences are evident between
urban and rural residents. Overall 75 per cent of
urban adults compared to 82 per cent of rural
adults expect financial support from children in
old age but even this difference is in part
attributable to the higher proportion of urban
residents are single. Among ever married adults,
82 per cent of urban residents and 87 per cent of
rural residents expect support.
71