The quality of life of construction workers' children in Bangkok Metropolis, Thailand

This study represents an attempt to describe the quality of life (QOL) of construction workers' children in Bangkok, Thailand, by a multi-method approach. It began with the development of the QOL Measure for children aged 5-8 years. The underlying concepts and structure of the measure were based on the WHOQOL (The World Health Organization Quality of Life Assessment). Focus group interviews were used to examine whether the WHOQOL structure was relevant to the conceptualisation of the QOL among Thai children and the mothers. The data gained from focus group interviews enabled two sets of questionnaires to be developed—a Child's form and a Carer's form. After that, the measures were piloted with groups of construction workers' children and urban children, as well as their carers, and the data obtained showed that the children's perceptions mostly corresponded to that of their carers. The preliminary psychometric properties of the measures were investigated. In addition, the item analysis was done to select the most appropriate items for the new version scales which were used to collect data from 496 pairs of children and carers in Bangkok during July 4th–September 19th 1997. The data obtained showed that the QOL of construction workers' children was poorest in the environmental domain, when compared to that of urban children, or when compared to the other domains of their lives, even when compared with their own expectations. The study then proceeded to investigate the relationships between some selected factors—the personal background factors, the general health factors, the social/environmental factors and the importance of QOL—and the children's QOL. It was found that most variables in those factors, as proposed in the conceptual framework of this study, were related to the children's QOL. The father's income was the best predictor among variables in the personal background factors, while types of house and school, modes of transportation to school and the amount of time that the child spent on extra study courses were the particularly significant variables among the social/environmental factors. Among all these significant variables, it was found that the importance of QOL had a significant and reciprocal relationship to the child's QOL. The simultaneous equation models obtained from this analysis could explain about 29% of the variability in the child's QOL. The empirical findings from the previous stages enable us to identify the social policy involved in the problematic areas in the lives of construction workers' children. These were the Labour Protection Law and the Social Security Act. The policy analysis established that those children whose parents were construction workers in small establishments (less than 10 workers), constituted the most vulnerable group in terms of the lack of any form of occupational welfare and social security. The results from the study provide some ideas and recommendations to improve the QOL of construction workers' children. In addition the lessons drawn and the experience gained from the study of children's QOL contribute some recommendations to further studies in this field.