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Northeast Thailand (Isan) |
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| Northeast Thailand, known as the Isan Region, is the largest region in the Kingdom with 19 provinces and is the most populated area in the country, but also the poorest economically. Over 80% of the people are farmers. Isan is a very flat region facing the problems of flooding every year. When flooding occurs, crops are also destroyed. The rest of the year, this region is very dry and lacks of rain arise. People there are living on rice crops and thus depend on the weather. |
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Northeast Thailand, known as the Isan Region, is the largest region in the Kingdom with 19 provinces and is the most populated area in the country, but also the poorest economically. Over 80% of the people are farmers. Isan is a very flat region facing the problems of flooding every year. When flooding occurs, crops are also destroyed. The rest of the year, this region is very dry and lacks of rain arise. People there are living on rice crops and thus depend on the weather.
The underdevelopment of the Northeast is generally seen to be the direct result of a degraded environment (poor soil, capricious weather and irregular distribution of water resources). The impact of a degraded environment on the development of the Northeast is undeniable, but it is a partial and insufficient reason for the underdevelopment in the northeast, although planning has generally attributed the reasons for the underdevelopment to geography.
The average poverty criteria of the whole country increased from 473 Baht/person/month in 1998 to 916 Baht/person/month in 2001 due to changes in population structure and the price of consumer products. The percentage of poor people means the proportion of poor people compared to the population of the whole country. From 1988 to 2001, the percentage of the poor tend to decrease continuously, but after the economic recession in 2000, the percentage of poor people in Thailand increased from 11.4% in 1996 to 13.0% in 2001. This situation increased the number of poor people in Thailand from 6.8 million in 1996 to 9.9 million in 1999 and then declined to 8.9 and 8.2 million in 2001 and 2001 respectively. (Click here for Percentage and Number of poor people classified by region)
Some behavior and life patterns that contribute to poverty are: disrespect for self, lack of confidence, lack of protection, being drug/cigarette/gambling addicted, lack of information, education and managerial skills leading to unsuccessful investment, imitation of consumption and production patterns without thorough contemplation, expenditure exceeding income due to high spending, cultivation for sale rather than family/own consumption, lack of savings both in monetary and non-monetary terms, greed, selling off land (to send children for higher education, yet children are unable to work at the locality nor find decent job due to economic situations).
One of the major results of the underdevelopment of the Northeast has been the increasing migration of the peoples of the Northeast to urban centers and especially to Bangkok. The concentration of economic activity in the greater Bangkok region draws millions of workers to the center from farms, except during the planting and harvest seasons. For most of the year, the Northeast, the poorest of the regions, is emptied of its able-bodied men and women and even the elder children, all gone off to the capital for work.
It is true that the migrants who leave the Northeast to work in the Bangkok region are in fact the "backbone" of the labor force manufacturing and service sectors of the country. It is also true that in one sense, migration makes a valuable contribution to the economic welfare of households in the Northeast through funds sent home by the migrants. It is also true; however, that migration does not produce sustainable development for the Northeast region as it depends heavily on conditions in Bangkok and the continued availability of opportunities there. The Northeastern people are perhaps at the apex of their dependence on the urban metropolis when they migrate.
The massive flows of workers to Bangkok are a symptom of what many consider Thailands most serious social problem: the growing income gap between the urban rich and the rural poor. When children of Isan become teenagers, crowds of them must strike out on the road to seek work, often going overseas. During the dry season, the villages are empty as working people gather to the capital and elsewhere leaving only the old and very young.
One of the negative impacts of migration is the stress that it places on traditional family units in the Northeast. Labor migration has become a key fixture of the entire Thai economy, but such migration comes with a heavy price. The damage place on Thailands traditional family structures is huge. Husbands and wives frequently can not stay together and their children are always raised by relatives in their home villages. Northeast Thailand has done little if anything to enable its development in the economic sense or the social sense.
The rural area is where poor people mostly reside (80% of poor people in Thailand reside in the rural areas). In 2001, the number of poor people in rural areas was 7.1 million from the total number of 8.2 million (16.5% of total rural population).
When classified by regions, Northeast Thailand is still where poor people mostly resided with the average number of 5.2 million (63.4% of the total number of poor people in Thailand/ 24.5% of the total population of Isan) compare to 0.8% of poor people in Bangkok and its surrounding provinces. And when Thailand faced the economic recession in 1997, Isan was the most impacted region with an increase in numbers of poor people more than other regions of Thailand.
แผนที่ภาคตะวันออกเฉียงเหนือ |
สรุปทุนการศึกษา ปี 1988-2006 |
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