In its initial stages, the PDA assisted the government as a community-based family, planning service operating throughout the towns and
villages of Thailand. Now almost 20 years later, the population growth rate has come down to a 1.2 percent average, or two children per family, with a very high proportion of Thai couples--something in the vicinity of 75 percent--practicing contraception these days.
All these advances in welfare occurred through government-led development efforts in the almost 60,000
villages of Thailand. While it is undeniable that development policies have also deepened inequalities in Thai society this should not detract from the considerable improvements made in the material well-being of the vast majority of the Thai population.