This.work is an analysis of migration to and from small
rural towns in Thailand using three sources of data: the
1980 Census of Thailand, a survey of 15 small rural towns
and the community-level data. The small rural towns are
defined as rural sanitary districts with a population
between 1,500 and 5,000. The objectives of the study are
mainly concerned with the patterns, the determinants and the
consequences of migration to and from the towns. Special
attention is also directed to examining the relationship of
the patterns of migration with the development level of the
towns or their characteristics.
Migration to rural towns tends to be from rural areas,
a short-distance movement, family migration, and maledominated.
The most distinctive pattern is that the towns
are more likely to draw their administrative elites and
professionals from other towns or cities compared with other
categories of residence in the Thai urban hierarchy. This
may affect the development process in the towns since the
elites tend to be concerned only with their routine work and
serve the needs of the central ministries not the needs of
local people.
The main reason for migration to rural towns was
commonly a family-related reason for first-time migrants,
long-term migrants and female migrants. Work-related
reasons appeared to be the outstanding reasons for male
repeat migrants and most male migrants moving from urban
areas. However, the majority of migrants said that the
presence of kin or friends in the towns was an important
factor influencing their migration decision when they were
asked about their secondary reasons for migration. Also, a
higher level of development in the towns than in the
countryside had a significant impact on the migration
decision making of many migrants moving from villages. The two most common reasons for out-migration from
rural towns were work-related reasons and education. The
propensity to migrate out of the towns either permanently or
temporarily was obvious among those who were students at,the
time of the interview. This is mainly because secondary
education is generally the highest level of education
provided in the rural towns. Migration from rural towns
whether it was a short-term move or long-term move tends to
be towards larger towns, namely municipal areas or the
capital city.
The changes in socio-economic characteristics and
improvement in living conditions after migration to rural
towns indicate that on average, both return and in-migrants
benefited from the changes and experienced considerable
improvement. Migrants to rural towns experienced an
increase in the positive changes with increasing duration of
residence. Non-migrants are used as a reference group to
assess migrant adjustment. Living situations in relation to
home ownership, housing quality and consumer durables of the
household tend to be better for non-migrants and return
migrants than for recent and long-term migrants. But
occupational prestige of migrants and non-migrants does not
differ significantly after controlling for socio-economic
characteristics. The majority of migrants felt no
difficulties in adapting to life in rural towns because most
migrants came from a similar cultural background as they
tended to move from the areas near the towns.
The development level of the towns shows a positive
relationship to the level of in-migration but not the level
of out-migration. The sex ratio of migrants to the more
developed towns favours females. However, the effect of
structure or characteristics of the towns on retaining
people in the towns is not very pronounced. The outstanding
factor found to have a high and positive relationship to
people’s intention to remain in the towns is 'satisfaction
with life'. Attempts to increase the level of community satisfaction is thus highly recommended for policies
concerned encouraging people to remain in their hometowns or
villages. To decentralise power to local people is seen as
a way to achieve this goal and to support the ideology of
development from below