Reproductive Preferences in Post-transition Thailand: Implications for the Future Course of Fertility

Two large national surveys in 1988 and 1993 provide new evidence on trends in family size preferences in Thailand at a time when the fertility transition is reaching its conclusion. Although the averages preferred number of children has continued to decline there is a resistant lower bound of two children for the vast majority of respondents, stemming apparently from a pervasive, although not inflexible, desire to have one child of each sex. Moreover, new evidence from birth registration data indicates that the decline in the total fertility rate appears to have leveled off at about the replacement level. The findings on reproductive preferences from the Social Attitudes Towards Children Surveys challenge the view that fertility in Thailand will continue to fall well below replacement level and are quite contradictory to recent alarmist fears of population decline in the foreseeable future.

Dataset(s): 1988 and 1993 Social Attitudes Surveys, Thailand Birth registration data, Thailand.