Intergenerational Mobility of Education in Thailand: Effects of Parents’ Socioeconomic Status on Children’s Opportunity in Higher Education
7
Issued Date
2022-01-01
Resource Type
ISSN
01198386
Scopus ID
2-s2.0-85133222604
Journal Title
Asia-Pacific Social Science Review
Volume
22
Issue
1
Start Page
158
End Page
173
Rights Holder(s)
SCOPUS
Bibliographic Citation
Asia-Pacific Social Science Review Vol.22 No.1 (2022) , 158-173
Suggested Citation
Meemon N. Intergenerational Mobility of Education in Thailand: Effects of Parents’ Socioeconomic Status on Children’s Opportunity in Higher Education. Asia-Pacific Social Science Review Vol.22 No.1 (2022) , 158-173. 173. Retrieved from: https://repository.li.mahidol.ac.th/handle/123456789/83479
Title
Intergenerational Mobility of Education in Thailand: Effects of Parents’ Socioeconomic Status on Children’s Opportunity in Higher Education
Author(s)
Author's Affiliation
Other Contributor(s)
Abstract
As a result of the government investment in education opportunity, there has been a remarkable expansion of higher education over the last 50 years in Thailand. Nevertheless, it still remains questionable whether the expansion is accompanied by ensuring equality of opportunity in higher education. Thus, this study, employing the concept of intergenerational mobility, examined both cross-sectional and long-term effects of parents’ socioeconomic status on children’s opportunity in higher education with the nationwide socioeconomic data of 2005 and 2017. The results indicated that although the higher education opportunity increased by approximately 30% during the 12-years period, parents’ socioeconomic status still played a significant role for the increased opportunity. For household factors, the higher education opportunity was significantly lower among children in lower income, large-sized, single-parent, or rural households. For parental factors, that was significantly lower among children with lower educated, unemployed, or informal-sector parents. Particularly for income, the opportunity gap was nearly 13 times between the highest and lowest income households. Furthermore, these patterns were persistent or worse during the 12-years period. Among several policy recommendations that we proposed, a family involvement program, which has been identified as an effective intervention to mitigate the gap in educational attainment caused by socioeconomic differences, should be a prior consideration.