Cultural ideals, socioeconomic change, and household composition: Karen Lua', Hmong, and Thai in Northwestern Thailand
Author(s):
Kunstadter, Peter
Format:
Book section
Publisher:
1984.
Language:
English
Abstract:
This paper examines community differences and household compostion changes among Karen, Lua', Hmong, and Thai ethnic groups in villages and towns in northwestern Thailand, using cross-sectional and longitudinal data from community surveys in the 1960s and in 1981. Household variables include household size, relationship of members, number of generations, number of marriages, and postmarital residence. Both cultural rules and demographic variables determine household composition and the distribution of household types within a community. Changes in birth and death rates as well as migration can all influence household composition. Socioeconomic changes in modernization, commercialization, and urbanization have affected the study area. The ideal Karen household contains a married couple, their unmarried children, and their youngest married daughter and her husband. When a younger sister marries, and older sister and her husband move out to form a separate household. 1968 and 1969 surveys of Karen communities show 65.8% and 72.9% nuclear familes and 21.1% and 22% extended matrilineal families. An ideal Lua' household is the same except that it includes the youngest married son and his family rather than the youngest married daughter. A Lua' village in 1968 shows 52% nuclear and 34% extended families. On the other hand, an ideal Hmong household includes a man and his wife or wives, their unmarried children, their married sons and their wives and children, and their married grandsons and their wives and children. Hmong household heads are very successful in following their cultural ideal. Only 23.6% of households are nuclear; 76.5% are extended. The one mixed Hmong-Karen community shows each ethnic group practicing its ideal cultural type rather attempting to produce a large agricultural labor force for cash crops. Concrete differences in frequencies of cypes of household compostition are consistent with the cultural ideals of the ethnic groups and have persisted over time and during socioeconomic change. The data do not show modernization leading to a greater proportion of nuclear families (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)