Law on Time Banks from Time Banking to Benefit Society of Aging People

Abstract

The objective of this research is to establish a prototype law on Time Bank to benefit aging societies in order to solve a problem of the overpopulation of the elderly in Thailand, affecting the government budget in providing public services especially for the elderly which is a basic mission the state shall perform. The problem of the increase of the number of the elderly exists in foreign countries as well. However, those countries have adopted a time accumulation scheme under the concept in which the elderly is able to help one another as a measure in arranging social welfare to mitigate a burden of the government budget for the elderly. In order to apply the time accumulation scheme in Thailand, it is necessary to compare such scheme with the Thai social welfare and to adjust such scheme to perfectly fit in the Thai society. Then, it will be used as a structure of the prototype law to support the time accumulation scheme with clear guidelines by using a qualitative research consisting of a documentary research, in-depth interviews of the citizens of Thailand and those of the Confederation of Switzerland, the participation in design and co-design of interested people. The result of the design and co-design, as the opinions of people in relation to the social welfare for the elderly, will be analyzed with a literature review to prepare a prototype law. As a result of the research, the time accumulation scheme used in drafting a prototype law contains several legal elements which are a responsible organization dealing with the accumulation of time, qualifications of members in Time Bank, a form, a time accumulation process, benefits from accumulating time, promotion measures and liabilities from accumulating time. The Social Welfare Promotion Act, B.E.2546 which consists of 36 sections, divided into 1 category 15 parts 1 transitory provision, is a regulation that supports the time accumulation measure and indicates a clear and materialistic operation of time accumulation to provide a social welfare for the benefits of the elderly. In this research, a secondary law has been established to be more transparent and to facilitate in drafting the law. A suggestion is to find a state measure in explaining and discussing with people relating to the law enforcement and also the elderly as stakeholders, members of Time Bank, since the form of the accumulation of time is new to Thailand, also, good knowledge and understanding are required in taking care of the elderly due to its delicateness.