[Population policy in Thailand]

Population policy may be defined differently by students of demography but it is generally defined as measures aiming at influencing demographic processes--fertility, mortality, and migration--through public and private programs. Population policy may also be classified into different types: direct and indirect policies; population influencing and population responsive policies; explicit and implicit policies; and domestic and international policies. For Thailand, earlier population policies tended to be policies aimed at increasing the size of population through pronatalist and public health measures. However, findings of various studies in the early 1960s indicated that the rate of population growth in Thailand since the end of World War II had been as high as 3% per annum. These had led the government to eventually issue the first national population policy statement "supporting family planning through a voluntary system..." in March 1970. The first 5-year family planning program was included in the health plan of the Third National Economic and Social Development Plan (1972-1976). From the Fourth National Economic and Social Development Plan (1977-1981) onwards, population policies were made more comprehensive to cover all dimensions of population: population growth; quality of population; and population distribution and human settlements. Since population policy is an integral component of overall economic and social policies, conflicts between objectives of sectoral policies have to be minimized as much as possible. Future options of the population policies were briefly discussed.