The global financial crisis, which was triggered in
2008 by the effects of the earlier bursting of the United
States housing bubble, has had a considerable impact on
Thailand because of its export orientation and reliance
on external demand. The poor have been the group most
severely affected by the economic downturn, as is
always the case. In the Southeast Asian region, including
in Thailand, women have been among the most
vulnerable and are likely to have been disproportionately
affected by the crisis.
The original version of this paper1
had as its
primary objective examining whether and how Thai
women were being affected by the current global
financial crisis. The research objectives included
assessing the impact of the crisis on women in Thailand;
studying and analyzing the gendered nature of the
government’s response so far; and developing a set of
recommendations for governments, regional institutions
and donors. Because of space constraints, in this paper
only empirical evidence of the impact of the global crisis
on women’s employment is presented; the evidence has
been derived mainly from the Labor Force Survey
undertaken by the National Statistical Office (NSO).