Thai retirees started outnumbering people entering the workforce for the first time last year, sparking concerns that the country faces a future of economic and social breakdown.
An official report titled “Thailand’s Critical Birthrate Fall” estimates that the number of first-jobbers (people aged between 20 and 24) has already dropped below the number of people hitting retirement age (60 to 64 years old) in 2023.
“The gap between these figures threatens to cause labor shortages, raise the dependency ratio, and increase elderly healthcare expenses,” the report said.
Motivating people to have babies
If the trend of falling birthrate is not reversed, Thailand’s population will shrink from its current level of 66 million to just 33 million by 2083, says demographics expert Prof Kua Wongboonsin.
Projections also suggest that over the same period, the number of working-age…
