Asia-Pacific Population Journal - Volume 21, Issue 2, 2007

On 26 December 2004, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck off the coast of Indonesia, generating a widespread tsunami. The resulting waves, some up to 15 meters high, reached the heavily populated shores of Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, India and the east coast of Africa, leaving a path of death and destruction in their wake. The final death toll may never be known, but it is likely that at least 200,000 people lost their lives on that fateful day, with some estimates running as high as 280,000. Along with lives lost, the tsunami destroyed countless livelihoods and made millions of people homeless. Soon after the event, in an interview with CNN, United Nations Emergency Relief coordinator Jan Egeland summarized the situation: “This may be the worst natural disaster in recent history because it is affecting so many heavily populated coastal areas... so many vulnerable communities”.

In this paper, the author looks at one important but usually sidelined aspect of gender equity and female empowerment: the access that women have to leisure. Much of the research on empowerment is about women having the resources, technical, material and physical, to take decisions, to be physically mobile and to manipulate their larger environment. In turn, this empowerment is valorized because of all the good uses to which it is typically put according to the large and growing literature on female empowerment. The autonomous or empowered women is supposed to be good for society and for the family because her autonomy results in lower fertility, lower infant and child mortality, better household welfare, higher contributions to economic development, and other benefits. But there is much less concern with what autonomy and empowerment can do for women themselves, with the exception of the demographic outcomes like better health.

Following rapid fertility declines and sustained improvements in life expectancy during the second half of the twentieth century, most countries in East and South-East Asia entered the twenty-first century faced with the problem of population ageing. Population ageing, defined as the increasing proportion of older persons in the total population, is projected to progress in East and South-East Asia at rates higher than the average for the world and the less developed regions (LDRs). Among the various challenges arising as a result of the increasing proportion and absolute numbers of the elderly population, ensuring that older persons are provided adequate care is of paramount concern. A rising proportion of the older population relative to that of the active adult and working age population means that each worker will have to contribute towards supporting an increasing number of older persons. Also, given the declining family size, the number of caregivers available per older person will continuously decline. The implications of the growing imbalance in the demographic equation are further aggravated by increasing globalization, migration, the increasing preference for the nuclear family and, in some countries, the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

As the result of a rapid decline recently in fertility levels, Viet Nam has largely completed the transition to low fertility. The total fertility rate (TFR) estimated in the 1999 Census was 2.3 children per woman. Previous demographic surveys indicated TFRs of 4.0 in 1987 (Viet Nam Demographic and Health Survey - VNDHS-I), 3.3 for the period 1989-1993 Intercensal Demographic Survey (ICDS 1994), and 2.5 for 1996-1997 Viet Nam Demographic and Health Survey (VNDHS-II). As might be expected, the rapid fertility decline in Viet Nam reflects the significant growth of contraceptive use. VNDHS II data indicate that the all method contraceptive prevalence rate (CPR) had reached 75 per cent by 1997 and the modern method rate 56 per cent.

Death is a major factor affecting a country’s population structure. Evidence shows that death rates tend to decrease continuously and rapidly as a consequence of continued improvements in medical care and the public health system along with socio-economic development. Infant, child and maternal mortality are, therefore, often used as indicators, reflecting the effectiveness of the public health system and improvements in the quality of life. In Thailand, such improvements have been evident. From 1964-1965 to 1995-1996, male and female life expectancy at birth increased from 59.9 to 69.9 years and 62 to 74.9 years, respectively.