Since Waros was a young girl, she longed to have a baby and a loving family of her own.
Controversial: The announcement, later withdrawn, that was posted at Rajavithi Hospital advising female staff to take contraceptives and avoid pregnancy.
Now, at 32, she has seemingly turned that dream into reality: not only does she have a one-year-old daughter but she has managed to balance motherhood with a stable job at a commercial bank.
“I couldn’t ask for more. I am exactly where I always wanted to be,” Mrs Waros told Spectrum, grinning broadly.
But the path has not been rosy; Mrs Waros has had to make sacrifices along the way.
She has been stuck in the same lower-level role at the same bank for the past decade, routinely declining promotions that would require her to spend more time away from her family.
Mrs Waros said she wanted to enjoy a good career path, but placed a greater priority on spending time with her family.
In a rigid workplace environment, those two goals have been almost impossible to balance; Mrs Waros said she was often unable to work overtime due to family obligations.
The biggest barrier to her career remained the desire to have a child.
“I accepted this when I signed the work contract,” Mrs Waros told Spectrum. “A human resources manager told me I might not be able to climb up the corporate ladder as fast as my male counterparts if I have to take three months off [for maternity leave].”
Juggling work demands with family life is one of the biggest challenges facing working mothers. Yet despite an increasing number of women in the workforce, many employers remain insensitive to their needs.
Some actively discourage staff from getting pregnant in the first place.
Ladies in waiting: A pregnant patient at Rajavithi Hospital, where staff have been advised not to get pregnant, waits for a check-up. photo: PATIPAT JANTHONG
‘YOU MUST RESIGN’
Rajavithi Hospital became the centre of controversy last week when a memo, posted for its staff earlier this month, was circulated online.
“From Oct 31, 2014 to Dec 31 2015, all female employees have to take birth control pills,” the notice said. “Pregnancy is forbidden. If you get pregnant, you must resign immediately.”
Underneath the notice, the signatures of about 30 female staff members had been scrawled, acknowledging the directive.
Udom Chaowarin, the hospital’s director, said on Tuesday the sign was made for the pharmacy department to “discourage” its female employees from taking leave.
He explained that 90% of the department’s personnel are female, and the hospital was concerned there might not be enough staff to cater to patients if too many were taking maternity leave.
Dr Udom bowed to public pressure and ordered that the memo be removed, though remained unapologetic.
Worried: Thanate Kitisriworaphan from Mahidol University says Thai families are shrinking. photo: chaiyot yongcharoenchai
COST OF MOTHERHOOD
Companies are required by the Labour Protection Law to grant all new mothers 90 days of maternity leave. In reality, many women are pressured to take less than this allotment.
“Most of them take less than 90 days because they don’t want to lose the financial benefits and allowances [such as overtime] from showing up at work,” an official from the Honda Workers’ Union of Thailand said.
Asked whether the female workers have asked the union to press the company for more maternity benefits, the same officer said: “No, but they have pushed for gender equality in the past. The company used to have a different retirement age for male and female staff — 55 for men and 50 for women. Now, everyone in the company retires at 55.”
On average, women with higher levels of education will have less children. The Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey sponsored by Unicef in 2012 shows Thai mothers with primary education have 2.9 children on average, compared to the overall average of 1.8.
Caspar Peek, from the UN Population Fund's (UNFPA) Thailand country office, said: “This does not mean that they [working mothers] do not want to have more children, but often they cannot afford them [due to] work, studies, and a busy lifestyle with very little support from family, who often live in rural areas, or are very busy themselves.”
According to research conducted by Mahidol University’s Institute for Population and Social Research (IPSR), more Thai women pursued tertiary education than their male counterparts from 1970-2010. For instance, 21.4% of women received a bachelor’s degree during that time, compared to only 17.9% of men.
Some women who want to achieve professional advancement are left in a position where they must postpone their marriage or pregnancy and place a lower priority on building an extended family, a distinct break from their parents’ generation.
No victory: Thailand's birth rate has fallen to its lowest level ever as more women are choosing their careers over having families. Patipat Janthong
BREAKING WITH TRADITION
If Saowapa was born in an earlier generation, she would already have had at least a couple of children. But the newly-married 31-year-old prefers to stay childless.
She began her career as an account executive for an event management company and has risen to become sales director.
“I don’t think having children would make my life complete,” said Mrs Saowapa, who knew her husband eight years before they decided to get married.
While traditional thinking dictates that a complete family must be comprised of a husband, a wife and children, Mrs Saowapa believes having children would limit her freedom.
“For me, having children would not prove that my family is complete. I have a whole list of things I want to do before having a child. I want to continue my higher education abroad, we want to save up as much money as possible, and we are planning to relocate abroad,” she said.
“It is not that I don’t want to have a child, but I want my child to be born with everything ready to make his or her life complete. We are trying to give stability to our child. That is my concept of a complete and perfect family.”
SHIFTING IDEALS
Mr Peek, from the UNFPA, said the make-up of Thai families is changing, and that rapidly shifting lifestyles have changed the definition of the “ideal” family.
“We tend to think of families as grandparents with two or three children, and five to eight grandchildren, but those times are gone,” Mr Peek said.
“These days grandparents often no longer live with their children, although many in rural areas may live with their grandchildren, while the parents are away in the cities for work.
“We also see many more people who do not get married, by choice or because they simply did not find the right partner. And we also see different forms of families, including single parents, both women and men, as well as same-sex couples. So there is definitely a much more complex picture that is emerging, with its own set of complexities.
“What we are seeing now more often is couples with no children, or one child. On average Thai women have 1.6 children, so that is a far cry from the families with five children in the ’70s. The average family these days counts three people, and one out of every five households consists of one person only.”
SOCIAL PRESSURES
Social and professional pressures placed on working women in particular have discouraged many from having babies, exacerbating the country’s low birth rate.
Thanate Kitisriworaphan, a post-doctoral researcher from IPSR, told Spectrum: “If the trend is not addressed within 30 years, we might end up with an aged population that makes up as much as 20% of the overall population.
“We are facing a dangerous situation of not having enough young people to work in the future.”
According to Mr Thanate’s research, conducted this year as part of Mahidol’s Birth and Security of Thai Population and Society report, Thailand has only 1.6 children per family, compared with 6.3 children three decades ago.
The rate is only slightly above Japan, where the average of 1.4 children per family is hampering economic recovery and fuelling grave fears for future growth.
“We are now having a situation where people aged 65 and above make up 14% of our overall population of 64 million,” Mr Thanate said.
He noted that the decline in Thailand’s birth rate has happened extraordinarily quickly — mostly over a 20-year period. European countries, by contrast, took more than a century to fall to a similar birth rate.
Most women of “fertile age” — 14-49 — are no longer planning to have extended families like in the past, he added.
“People these days are focusing on building up their social status and financial stability. They seem to put their career advancement as their top priority,” Mr Thanate said.
He explained that more people are choosing to forgo having children to maintain mobility in their lives and careers.
In his recent survey of working couples’ decision to have a baby, some couples said they had decided to postpone marriage until their parents retired so that they would have someone to help care for their baby.
Some working parents who live in the city lack effective support and are forced to send their children upcountry to be raised by their parents.
On the way out: A pregnant woman makes her way to a skytrain station in Bangkok. Many Thai women are now opting not to have children. photos: Patipat Janthong
DUTY OF CARE
Since Thailand has limited daycare facilities to take care of children while parents are at work, many have no choice but to leave their children with family members.
Mr Thanate said there is a dearth of support for working couples who want to have children.
A survey he conducted last year found local administrative organisations under the Interior Ministry operate 19,820 childcare facilities with 33,550 workers nationwide.
Compared to the number of children across the country, that number is low.
In 2007, it was estimated that the number of childcare facilities under the local administrative organisations accounted for 90% of the total nationwide, with the other 10% being run by the private sector. A total of 940,000 children used daycare services, meaning there was only one worker per 48 children. The target rate set by the local administrative organisations is one teacher per 20 children.
By comparison, Singapore has 20,000 childcare centres against its population of only two million people — Thailand has 67 million — even though the city-state’s birth rate is lower than Thailand at 1.29.
Because of the inadequate daycare facilities in Thailand, 21% of children here grow up away from their mother and father, especially those with working parents. In Laos, that number is only 5%.
The research also found that 25% of those children who don’t grow up with their parents have significant development issues, compared with only 9% of those children who do grow up with their parents.
OFFERING INCENTIVES
“The governments of other countries such as Singapore offer a ‘baby bonus’ to encourage people to have more children,” Mr Thanate said.
“I think we might want to consider making plans for a better work-life balance to keep our society growing.
"We need a new generation to help develop our country.”
Mr Peek said many Thai mothers are desperately trying to balance the need to continue working with the need to take care of their children, but without adequate support systems provided by family, communities, employers and the state.
“Unless that very essential need is solved, it is unlikely that any such woman will consider having another child,” he said.
Thailand does have some measures in place to support parents — namely tax deductions for parents and social welfare schemes such as a child allowance.
But Phunthip Kanchanachittra Saisoonthorn, associate professor of law at Thammasat University, said there are no direct measures to change people’s attitudes towards having children.
In a study she conducted this year looking at “Laws binding the Thai state and protecting human birth as a factor to population and social security”, she found that “a concept of drafting a promotive law should be developed and a state agency may be assigned as a competent authority on this specific issue”.
But the government’s financial allowances designed to encourage mothers to have more babies are failing.
At least part of that boils down to employers, some of whom do not think they need to implement policies to allow workers more family time.
The Honda union representative said the company has some policies to encourage families to have children. The union’s website shows that the company gives 1,000 baht in cash to all new mothers, as well as monthly family allowances of 250 baht, monthly child allowances of 75 baht. It also offers a scholarship programme for the children of employees.
Small financial benefits, however, generally have little effect when it comes to influencing family decisions.
“A good policy would help with all these issues, but it would mostly focus on quality issues to get those couples who are ready for a child to decide to have one,” Mr Peek said.
“Some countries provide specific benefits or tax benefits for couples or mothers who have a second or even a third child. Or they may allow the parents, including the father, to take off up to six months from work when a baby is born while keeping all or a very large part of their salaries.
“The whole thinking behind this is that bringing a baby into the world is not just of benefit to the new parents, but it is society at large that will benefit from this, so society at large must help pay for it.” n