Schooling and Work in Thailand: A Life Course Study of Youth

Soumya Alva, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

With tremendous economic change in Thailand since the 1980s, domestic and foreign investments in predominantly export-based industry have resulted in high levels of economic growth with important consequences for individual lives including a growth in non-agricultural employment accompanied by rural-urban migration. Simultaneously, changes in government education policies have led to increasing enrollment especially at the secondary level. Given this context, we analyze retrospective life history data on individuals from Nang Rong district in Thailand to observe changes in youth transition to adulthood focusing on education and employment in the past two decades. We use a life course approach to examine three markers of this transition, first employment, first employment in a non-agricultural activity and first move outside of Nang Rong district for various cohorts of youth. We also make comparisons between the life course employment patterns of these youth with that of middle aged individuals during the same time period.