Fertility declines in many developing countries are now accelerating. Many scholars are trying to explain the demographic transition of developing countries as well as developed countries. But it is generally recognized that the explanations have some problems. The author has tried to provide a new explanation of the demographic transition in which two distinctive regimes distinguished in terms of resource use by mankind, that is population adjustment and population transition, have an important role in population changes. Population and the economy in micro situations tend to experience some imbalance in the phase when they utilize mainly renewable resources, particularly renewable energy. There are several ways to adjust any imbalance: one is voluntary fertility control, but this is generally the last to operate in most countries or regions. This is the population adjustment regime. On the other hand industrialization using non-renewable resources, and the development of a market economy make the relationship between population and economy indirect. And in the process some vital transitions occur. One of them is the fertility transition which is on the whole independent from the mortality transition and migration transition. This is the population transition regime. Using this new model this paper tried to explain the demographic transition in the rural northeastern region of Thailand. For this purpose interviews and questionnaire surveys were conducted in 1994 and 1995. The Northeast is the least developed and poorest region in Thailand. But fertility has declined significantly since the 1970s, although a time lag in the decline existed compared to other regions. The main factors contributing to the fertility decline were as follows. In terms of the population adjustment regime, during the early 20th century the imbalance between population and economy which occurred because of the decline in the death rate was adjusted by land encroachment, often accompanied by rural to rural migration, agricultural intensification, and migration to urban regions, particularly Bangkok. But these adjustments had limits because encroachment ceased by the 1950s, agricultural intensification was limited to only a part of the region, and permanent migration to Bangkok was difficult for poorly educated rural people who could only find unskilled laboring jobs in Bangkok as temporary migrants. At the same time, the gradual penetration of the market economy to rural regions in the Northeast and the spread of primary education tended to create cash economy for living and production for rural people. As a result, the cost of bringing up of children rose more and more. This was the beginning of the population transition regime in the rural region. In Thailand, at least after the 1960s both regimes worked in the poor rural regions of the Northeast, though population adjustment processes were stronger. This gave the incentive to control marital fertility. At exactly that time national family planning programs were introduced, and thus people easily accepted the programs and a rapid decline in fertility occurred. After that the spread of a market economy and the increase in use of electricity and machines accelerated, which made the transition process more important than the adjustment process.
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