Publication: Which children will go to secondary school? Factors affecting parents' decisions in rural Thailand
Issued Date
1997-06-01
Resource Type
ISSN
00360112
Other identifier(s)
2-s2.0-0031416632
Rights
Mahidol University
Rights Holder(s)
SCOPUS
Bibliographic Citation
Rural Sociology. Vol.62, No.2 (1997), 231-261
Suggested Citation
Lindy Williams, Kritaya Archavanitkul, Napaporn Havanon Which children will go to secondary school? Factors affecting parents' decisions in rural Thailand. Rural Sociology. Vol.62, No.2 (1997), 231-261. Retrieved from: https://repository.li.mahidol.ac.th/handle/20.500.14594/18230
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Thesis
Title
Which children will go to secondary school? Factors affecting parents' decisions in rural Thailand
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Abstract
This study examines parents' decisions about educating some or all of their children beyond primary school in rural Thailand. Their strategies often involve choices between sons and daughters and between older versus younger children. We find that the more children there are in a family, the lower the proportion who are sent to secondary school. Parents send more sons than daughters and more youngest than eldest children. The decision is sometimes associated with a specific "investment" strategy, but it may also reflect parents' ability to afford to send children beyond primary school. Important economic factors include children's perceived earning potentials, anticipated opportunity costs, and parents' poverty status. However, the issues of access to schools and the safety of children, particularly girls, are also critically important. These concerns are often weighed as heavily, or more heavily, than economic considerations.