Thai families have become more "nuclear" in character, while the high divorce rate has resulted in three million broken families, an official said yesterday.

Capitalism, increased competition, and the transformation from an agricultural to an industrial society had created changes to the Thai family structure, including making it more like the nuclear-age families of the west - limited to parents and children - rather than extended, Social Develop-ment and Human Security Ministry Inspector Ubol Limsakul told 120 participants at a "Family Empowerment" seminar.

Currently, about 55 per cent of families, or about 16 million, are categorised as being "nuclear-age", while 32 per cent are extended families, Ubol said, citing a study entitled, "Thai children nurtured in the four years of the new government".

The study also found that as the marriage registration rate had declined, the number of out-of-wedlock couples had increased, Ubol said.

The high divorce rate had now affected three million families in Thailand, especially in Bangkok and nearby provinces. About

1.3 million families were found to be single-parent families, she added.

A new type of family of same-sex couples had emerged and was growing, as Thai society had become more open and gave opportunities for gay people to live openly as couples, Ubol said. There were no statistics on this new family type as yet.

As for problems most encountered by Thai families, they included poverty-related issues such as increasing debt, domestic violence, lack of land and drug abuse. There are currently 500,000 HIV-positive people in Thailand, according to Ubol.

Another speaker, Asst Prof Apinya Vejayachai, dean of Thammasat University's Faculty of Social Administration, said government assistance for Thai family problems was negligible, as agencies still regard this area as a matter for the individuals involved to cope with.

In contemporary Thai society there were two types of family, Apinya said.

The first was the "modern" family, in which parents were too busy working and thus had no time to raise their children, leaving them with substitute institutions such as nurseries. This led to children growing up physically but not emotionally or psychologically.

The second type was the "post-modern" family. They were more individual but felt lonely and seemed to judge and praise people for their fame, wealth and social status, she said.

Pakamard Jaichalard

The Nation