Consumption Expenditure Comparison Among Vulnerable Households in Thailand

This study examines differences in consumption patterns among vulnerable households in Thailand. These include households without home ownership, households with only the elderly, households with disable persons, households with persons with chronic diseases and need assistance in daily living, skipped-generation households, households with a single mother as head of household, and also multiple-vulnerability households. For the estimation, the adaptive lasso method is used to determine whether the type of household vulnerability significantly determines each category of household expenditure. The results show that different types of vulnerable households have different financial burdens. While households with only the elderly have the highest medical and healthcare expenditures, households without home ownership has the highest housing rents, and skipped-generation households have the highest education expenditures. When consider the nonessential expenditures, households with only the elderly, skipped-generation households, and households with a single mother as head of household have lower expenditures on alcohol and tobacco. Moreover, none of the vulnerable households spends more on gambling than the non-vulnerable group. The different spending patterns of vulnerable households could provide guidance to the government in designing policies that meet the different needs of all vulnerable groups.