Wilailak Yoosamran. The development of public policy and administration on social security in ASEAN : a case study of social insurance for Thai migrant workers. Doctoral Degree(Public Policy and Public Management). Mahidol University. Mahidol University Library and Knowledge Center. : Mahidol University, 2018.
The development of public policy and administration on social security in ASEAN : a case study of social insurance for Thai migrant workers
Abstract:
The research aimed to study the development of public policy and administration on social security, as well as explore factors affecting the directions and changes in public policy as related to social security for ASEAN migrant workers, including the study of operational conditions and problems of public agencies in charge of social insurance benefits protection for Thai overseas migrant workers in the host countries: Singapore, Malaysia, and Brunei, and lastly develop schemes and guidelines on social insurance benefit protection for such migrants. This study was a mixed-method research employed concurrent procedure of the qualitatively-driven core component coupled with simultaneous QUAL+quan. Qualitative data were collected using in-depth interviews with 55 key informants and 30 Thai migrant workers for focus group discussion. The sample groups of the quantitative research selected by purpose sampling were 275 Thai migrant workers. Research revealed that the development of policy and administration on social security for ASEAN migrant workers had not obviously conducted joint operation between ASEAN member countries. Factors affecting the directions and changes in public policy as related to social security for ASEAN migrant workers comprised of economic, social, political, technological factors and international organization in which technological factor was less mentioned than other factors. Meantime, the operation conditions and problems of agencies in charge of social insurance protection for Thai migrant workers involved numerous limitations, especially on the short-term benefit, including obstacles imposed by different countries. This created inferior treatments for Thai migrant workers as compared to the country own citizens. As for possible schemes and guidelines for social insurance benefit protection for Thai migrant workers, only Thailand measures or the measures of country of origin were most appropriate and likely applied, followed by measures of disputed countries. Nonetheless, bi-lateral measures and ASEAN's multi-country measures were difficult to operate, especially the latter measure is the most difficult because it is imperative to amend laws in each country prior to negotiation and making of long-term agreement.