‘Magic’ won’t make babies
Giving out “magic vitamins” and pamphlets encouraging women at reproductive age to eat well and exercise does not sound like a very good way to boost the country’s declining birth rate. The noble-sounding slogan encouraging women to “have babies for the nation” is unlikely to achieve its goal either.
Left unaddressed, Thailand’s population is expected to have a zero growth rate in the next 10 years, according to the Department of Health, Public Health Ministry.
The birth rate has declined from 2.7% in 1970 to 0.4% two years ago. It is part of an overall ageing population trend that been on the policy agenda for years.
Recommendations are numerous on what must be done both at the policy and practical levels. These include reforms of the social security and healthcare systems, an extension of the retirement age, a drive to create a senior-friendly environment ranging from the adoption of universal designs to promotion of income-earning as well as recreational activities for elderly people.
As far as the drop in the birth rate is concerned, the National Economic and Social Development Board (NESDB) indicated several years ago that it should be higher than 1.6 for the country to thrive economically and socially and for the current working-age population to avoid having to shoulder an excessively heavy burden from caring for the elderly.
Again, there is no shortage of policy recommendations. Encouraging women to marry later when they are economically more secure, increasing the quality of childcare facilities and providing more support for working mothers have been proposed as measures that will help boost the fertility rate. Most importantly, there is an urgent need to lessen the economic pressure both on working women and families in general if policy makers really want to see more babies.
The truth is most, if not all the suggestions on how to cope with the demographic change have been stillborn. The government’s failure to come up with systematic responses to the demographic changes could put the brakes on economic growth, add pressure to the ever-shrinking workforce and result in a higher incidence of neglect of the elderly.
Changes in people’s lifestyles and urbanisation serve to make people want to stay single longer or opt not to marry at all. Those who do tend not to have babies. Against this backdrop, the Public Health Ministry has come up with a campaign encouraging women who aged between 20 and 34 to bear children for the nation.
While the Public Health Ministry which runs the babyfor-the-nation project mentioned other plans which include improving maternity leave so new mums can care for their babies better and providing tax measures to relieve the financial burden of child rearing, what it chose as the project’s highlight is the free distribution of vitamins including iron, folic acid and iodine for women at reproductive age.
The other seemingly major part of the campaign is a distribution of pamphlets entitled “Thai chicks with glowing cheeks”, educating women to eat more vegetables, exercise and take necessary vitamins so that they can be healthy mothers when the time comes.
While these measures will not hurt the birth rate, they are unlikely to improve it. Also, considering the large scale of problems caused by an ageing population, the distribution of free vitamins and pamphlets will only be seen as a gimmick more than a serious drive to bring genuine changes.
Studies both by international organisations, state agencies or academic institutions of the greying population and declining fertility pointed to a need for governments to come up with a raft of policies to provide real incentives for people to get married, to have children at the right age and to have the means to care for them properly. These entail serious manoeuvres such as changing the law and assigning a state agency to oversee this specific issue.
Fragmentary efforts featuring free vitamins and a catchy slogan enticing women to have babies for the sake of the country will not get the job done.