Thailand: Developed or Developing?

Some people have asked me whether or not Thailand is a developing country. The quick answer is yes. Of course, there must be a long answer, or I wouldn't be writing this. There are several different measure of development, and the main ones do not merely divide countries between developing and developed. The UN uses the "Human Development Index" encompassing life expectancy, literacy, education, standard of living, and quality of life. The countries then fall into one of four categories of development: very high, high, medium, or low. The countries in "very high" are developed, those in "high and medium" are developing, and those in low are underdeveloped. Thailand in is the lower end of the "High Human Development Index" group. The World Bank classification is the other major  measure; this focuses more on economy than indices of living. It also has four divisions based on income: high, upper-middle, lower-middle, low. Any country that is not "high income" is considered developing. Again, Thailand falls in the lower end of the upper-middle group.

So what does all this really mean? Basically it means that the basic standard of living in Thailand is quite different than that in the United States, Western Europe, Japan, or even South Korea but not as drastic as that in East Africa or Haiti. Thailand is in that middle ground where some people live very well indeed and others live quite poorly. My personal experience only extends to Bangkok. I don't know anything about rural Thailand since it requires a personal vehicle to explore, but I imagine the standard of living there is lower than most of Bangkok. Bangkok presents an interesting amalgam of developed and developing worlds.

A visitor to Bangkok could fly in to the main airport, take a taxi to a ritzy hotel, travel around only by Skytrain to see fancy malls and expensive restaurants. Another visitor could stay in our house, travel by non-air conditioned bus, shop in the stinky "wet market," and eat in open air neighborhood restaurants. These two people would experience totally different cities. The second would see how more people in Bangkok actually live, though many more are crowded into small apartments and shacks along the canals with fewer amenities than we. I think the reality of Thailand's "upper-middle" categorization is that most Thai have enough to eat, the majority receive some sort of education, many are literate, most have access to some sort of health care. Definite room for improvement, especially as far as quality of life and safety for children, but overall not horrible.

I feel that this sign in our church bathroom gives a pretty good idea of the mix of lifestyles in Bangkok:

Some people have never considered that one should not throw toilet paper into the toilet to flush; it needs to go into a separate trash can. Others have never seen any sort of toilet other than a squat one on the floor and need to be instructed to sit on the seat. This is the development rating for Thailand in a nutshell.