2 hours ago, Lacessit said:

A pimple which seems to be eagerly sought after by many Thai women, as soon as said women get into the thirties and forties.

My comment was meant quantitatively rather than qualitatively.

7 hours ago, Lacessit said:

If anyone looks at the racial composition of doctors in Australia, they will find a very high proportion of them are of Chinese or Indian origin. My GP and urologist are both Chinese.

Yes, and many of the young federal bureaucrats who worked for me in Canberra had swarthy skins and difficult to pronounce surnames, but they had been born in Oz and spoke broad Australian. Often very talented young people and a pleasure to work with.

I love when governments want to do social experimentation it always works out great.

3 hours ago, mfd101 said:

Not sure how that helps. My point is that expats here invariably overestimate their own importance in the scheme of things.

Which was my point ecxectly.

2 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

Your claim may or may not be true. Being poor does not mean you are without talent, nor bright, though many Westerners and conservatives would make that claim. 

 

Many immigrants are talented mechanics, landscapers, framers, carpenters, roofers, cooks, designers, musicians, etc, etc. Many are very hard workers and work far harder than their counterparts in the nations they settle in. Many pay taxes and make substantial contributions to society. They contribute alot more than you give them credit for. For example, where would the Thai construction industry be without the excellent Burmese carpenters? 

I'm not even going to engage. Take the Paris subway for 1 hour and then let's pick up this conversation.

On 8/26/2023 at 10:29 AM, JensenZ said:

If it was, you wouldn't be here. If you want to live 3rd world, go to Africa and experience the real thing, then come back and assess Thailand.

 

A low birthrate is actually a sign that Thailand is approaching developed nation status. Compare Thailand with the Philippines. The median age there is 24, nearly half of Thailand, and in the 1970's their populations and birthrates were similar. Now the Philippines has nearly 50 million more people than Thailand with over 117 million currently.

Good points.

 

Let me add this. Religiously devout people tend to make more babies, sometimes a lot more (of course, there are exceptions, both individiualwise and religionwise). That is the main reason why the birthrate is quite high in the Philippines (and also in many parts of the Middle East and Africa). The percentage of religious people is very high in those countries. 

 

 

 

 

 

27 minutes ago, JemJem said:

Good points.

 

Let me add this. Religiously devout people tend to make more babies, sometimes a lot more (of course, there are exceptions, both individiualwise and religionwise). That is the main reason why the birthrate is quite high in the Philippines (and also in many parts of the Middle East and Africa). The percentage of religious people is very high in those countries. 

It's not "religious peole" which makes the difference, but the specific religion and its teaching and rules. Thailand is very religious. We see it everywhere we go. Most of Asia is religious. The problem with the Philippines is specifically the Catholic religion, which considers masturbation and contraceptives to be evil. Having sexual relations = babies, and lots of them.

On 8/26/2023 at 6:50 PM, mfd101 said:

Life expectancy figures are nearly always based on expectancy at birth. But most of the large increase in 'life expectancy' in Western countries over the last 120 years came from the virtual elimination of child mortality.  Which means that, if you were to take the figures for life expectancy at, say, age 10 or 15 or even 20, the improvement over the last 120 years would be nowhere near as great as is usually quoted.

 

There have always been people who lived to a ripe old age (Thomas Hobbes was one: 1588-1679). Just not many of them.

This might be the case in more recent life expectancy figures, but going back centuries the mortality rate wasn't considered in the statistics, but analysis of the bones of the deceased to determine their age of death so it's a fact they really didn't live long. If child mortality was included in the stats, the life expectency would have been very much lower than stated in the one study I posted.

 

Here's an interesting study about life expectancy in Ancient Rome:

 

Health and Disease in a Roman Walled City

 

Quote

An extensive study done by Mario Novak and Mario Slaus found many skeletal remains available for examination in one specific colony in ancient Rome, Colonia Iulia Iader also known as Zadar. With tests it was found that the mean age of death for men was 37.4 years (with a standard deviation of 9.43 years), and for women was 38.4 years (with a standard deviation of 9.29 years). While this is only a sample representation of our study population, it could give reasonable insights to the whole of Rome. In the remains, several indicators of nutritional stress were found widespread among certain age groups. With the rates of these nutritional problems, it was even found that Romans favored male children in things like breastfeeding, leaving the females with higher rates of malnutrition. Periostitis was also found in many samples, with a frequency indicating overcrowding and overall poor quality of life.