สำนักงานราชบัณฑิตยสภา

อยู่คนเดี ยว : รูปแบบใหม่ของครั วเรื อนในสั งคมปัจจุบั น 134 The Journal of the Royal Society of Thailand Vol. 41 No. 2 April-June 2016 Abstract Living Alone: Emerging Pattern of Households in Present Societies Chai Podhisita Associate Fellow of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, The Royal Society of Thailand One-person household is a new social phenomenon that hardly existed in the past but is increasingly widespread today. This phenomenon is found not only among economically developed societies but also in less developed world including Thailand. This paper aims to give an overview of living alone in the global level and in Thailand. Drawing upon the existing data from secondary sources, the paper seeks to address why the phenomenon of living alone is continually growing and what the reasonable explanations are behind this. Existing data reveal that living in one-person household varies positively with level of industrial and social development. Most countries in the regions with high level of social and industrial development have high rate of living alone, whereas those in the regions with low level of social and industrial development have low rate of living in one-person households. The regions with high rate of living alone are Western Europe (31.0%), North America (27.6%), Eastern Europe (27.4%), and Australasia (24.2%). The regions with low rate of living alone include Latin America (11.4%), Middle East and Africa (10.9%) and Asia (8.8%). In Thailand during the period of 20 years from 1990 to 2010 the proportion of one-person households, although relatively low, has rapidly increased. In 1990 one-person households accounted for just 5% of all households in the country; this increased to 9.4% in 2000 and 18.3% in 2010. That is, nearly one in five households is one-person household at the end of this 20 year period. Analysis based on secondary data suggests that the phenomenon of living along is associated with some key changes in society: demographic transition, industrialization, and development in social welfare and culture. Keywords: one-person household, living alone, social changes, Thailand