Graying gracefully in Lanna: the experience of ageing in Chiang Mai amidst a demographic shift

Abstract

This research focuses on the emergence of Thailand as an ageing society. It explores how having a growing proportion of the population being elderly has affected older adults in Chiang Mai, addressing the ways in which this group exercise agency and autonomy amidst the changing family dynamics that are a consequence of this demographic shift. Topics discussed in this research that help lay the foundation for understanding the impact these trends have on older Thai adults include low fertility, migration, urbanization, filial responsibility, and multi-generational cohabitation. This study is broken into two parts. The first part of the study looks at ways in which older Thai adults' lifestyles have changed or been impacted by Thailand's rapid emergence as an ageing society. It identifies current trends using a macro lens in order to determine how the role and lifestyle of older adults has been affected by this shifting structure and the accompanying dynamics. The second part of this study centers around the individual on a more micro scale, in order to identify specific ways that elderly Thais in the peri-urban area of Chiang Mai continue to exercise agency in daily life. In order to understand and explain the research phenomena, this study draws upon four main concepts: biopolitics, kinship redefined, social body, and body capital. The conceptual framework utilized highlights the ways that the elements of these concepts are related and work together, tying together macro trends with micro choices and illustrating how structure and agency are intertwined in a continual, dynamic process. This study consists of two findings chapters, multi-faceted kinship redefined and agency and well-being of older adults in Chiang Mai. "Multi-faceted Kinship Redefined" looks at the way that the elderly maintain strong kinship networks amidst a societal-level shift in family size and living arrangements. "Agency and Well-being" focuses on life as it is lived, the way that elderly members structure their everyday to bring meaning to their lives. This study was qualitative in nature with participant observation, individual in-depth interviews, key informant interviews, and secondary data collection being the primary methods of gathering data. A total of 16 individual in-depth interviews and 4 key informant interviews were conducted between March 2020 and June 2021. To capture an urban and peri-urban perspective of ageing interviews were conducted with participants from the areas of Wat Kaet and San Kamphaeng in Chiang Mai.