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The International Journal of the Royal Society of Thailand
Volume XII, 2020

problem” just like the US and many of the advanced economies. This top
4
1 per cent group includes 600,000 to 700,000 people in families headed by
businessmen, property owners, professionals and managers. As Kobsak (2013:

68–9) notes, “Households at the top of the pyramid have been favored by the
state through concessions, protection against competition, and various privileges
which increase the level of rent in the system…. by leveraging these advantages,
in the long run they accumulate wealth, riches, property, land and various
benefits clearly different from those lower down the pyramid.”

Second, as Kobsak also shows, the bottom 1 to 5 per cent of the pyramid
have missed out on the trend of convergence. Their incomes have grown
significantly slower than the average. These households are mostly rural, resident
particularly in the northeast, with an older and less educated household head,
and larger-than-average household size.

Third, while the spatial factor in income inequality has diminished since
1988, education has become a bigger factor in determining differences in income
level. As the economy has grown in sophistication, the income premium for
those with secondary and (especially) tertiary education has sharply increased
(Dilaka, 2013). Over recent decades, the quantity of education has increased—
enrolment ratios are up, and average years of schooling have lengthened—but
the quality of schooling has lagged behind, and is very unevenly distributed.
In the international PISA tests of educational quality, Bangkok students perform
on par with those in the US, while students from the rural northeast are on
par with those from some countries in Africa (Pasuk and Pornthep, 2013).
Analyzing panel data tracking households across several years, Kobsak
(2013: 53, 61) shows that social mobility is still rather limited: those in the
bottom fifth of the income pyramid have only a 50 per cent chance of improving

their status; those in the middle ranges have an equal chance of going up, down,
or standing still; while “the richest can maintain their status rather well.”
The chances of a child gaining a better education than their household head
is still rather low.

4 In developed countries, economists can use data from personal tax returns to estimate the income
share of the top 1 percent in the country. For example in the US this share rose from 9 to 22 percent
between 1976 and 2015, causing a rise in overall inequality. In other OECD countries this share
also rose but not as much (Alvaredo et al, 2013).

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