Peace Without Poison

Throughout the seventies, when fertility declined from 6 to 3.5 children per woman, Thailand’scontraceptive prevalence rate was at best a paltry 35% and therefore could not have played anyrole in the fertility decline. Throughout the eighties, when fertility declined from 3.5 to 2.2children per woman, the contraceptive prevalence rate was on average at 60% and thereforecould not have had a significant role in the decline. During the nineties and the first decade ofthe 21 st century, Thailand made greater efforts to conceal its true sterilizing agents, namelyfluoridated milk as well as food and beverages adulterated with endocrine disruptors, which iswhy its contraceptive prevalence rate rose to 80%. But fertility collapsed to sub-replacementlevel not due to wider use of contraceptives, though they have played a secondary role, as muchas due to the intensification and expansion of covert methods of sterilization.Abortion is a non-factor in the fertility decline since it is illegal and allowed only in cases of rapeand incest or to save the life and health of a woman.As elsewhere in the world, Thailand’s GDP began to rise steeply only after the country reachedreplacement level fertility in the early 1980s.Thailand is in the early phase of the fourth stage of the demographic transition.833 | P a g e