Gender inequality in Thailand

The social and economic changes in Thailand in the past decades have important implications for the quality and quantity of labor. The economic and non-economic roles of women in Thailand can be traced back several hundred years in Thai history, when there were traditional discriminatory attitudes towards women in the culture of Thailand. The transformation of Thailand's social and economic structure since the 1960s led to the gender disparities in Thai society. Recently, the position of Thai women in the labor market has improved a lot in comparison to the past as a result of modernization. In 2011, Thailand ranked 69th out of 143 countries in the Gender Inequality Index. In labor economics, gender inequality is widely discussed in terms of concepts of sex segregation and employment discrimination. Thai government and non-governmental organizations have put forth many policies and programs to address gender inequalities in the last few decades.

Thailand was 69th in global rank of the UNDP's Gender Inequality Index (GII) in 2011 out of 146 countries, with the GII value of 0.382 (where the GII values range from 0 to 1, with 1 representing perfect inequality). The GII has three components that reflect three dimensions of gender inequality: reproductive health, empowerment, and economic activity.

Reproductive health is measured by maternal mortality rate and adolescent fertility rate. In 2011, the mortality ratio in Thailand was 48, which implies that for every 100,000 live births, 48 women die from pregnancy-related causes. The adolescent fertility rate was 43.3 birth per 1,000 live births to women ages 15–19 in the same year.

The share of parliament seats held by women and men and the attainment of secondary and higher education by each gender have been used as measures of empowerment of women, according to the GII. As of 2011, women held 14% of parliament seats, which represents an improvement over the 9.2% held in 2001. In 2011, Yingluck Shinawatra was selected as the first female Prime Minister of Thailand.

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