The 6th Iue Asia Pacific Research Prize“Commendation” Winner: Tamaki Endo

This paper focuses mainly on the "jobs" and "homes" of the urban lower class and identifies the impact that the global economy and labor restructuring since the mid 1980s has had on "labor" and "life styles" of the urban lower class, and their response to this. With the advancement of globalization, old and new phenomena of an informal economy coexisted in developing countries. Nevertheless, the "informal sector" theory of initial developmental economics that focuses on the rural-urban relations of a particular country and argues from the standpoint of one-track development does not fully grasp the increasingly more stratified situation or the dynamism of cities. To get beyond those limitations, this research took Bangkok as an example in a positive analysis of urban dynamics in the global age. Data obtained from long-term studies of community situations was used for analyses. The first task in this paper is to dynamically draw the reciprocating effects of movement in cities and work experiences of individual persons, macroeconomic structures, venture structures and restructuring of the urban space, on a time axis and space axis for analysis. More specifically, life course analysis was applied as the analytical method. The second task is to carefully extract the hierarchies and strata of the urban lower class by differences such as gender, generation and occupation. The urban lower class is often forced to change jobs or homes, but, via an analysis of the risk response process (loss of job, accident, etc.), the differences in response capability of individuals and households, and the real hierarchies and hierarchical movements within the urban lower class were identified. This paper is structured in two parts. The first is a macroanalysis. Because of restructuring in the 1980s and after, the structures of the Thai economy and labor market changed greatly. Urbanization advanced rapidly in Bangkok, but after an initial period of urban expansion, it became clear that an age of urban regeneration was more and more prevalent and the importance of analyzing cities from a lateral perspective was reconfirmed. Moreover, because of the rapid changes in Bangkok and the growing slums that were brought about, a policy on poverty and policies on persons engaged in informal economics, which accounted for about 70% of the working population, were implemented. Nonetheless, various policies had a limited affect as they did not grasp the dynamic changes of the city or the actual situation of the growing stratification of the urban lower class. The second part is a microanalysis centered on data obtained in a study of two communities (downtown and suburb) of differing siting conditions. A community is a space that allows changes in work and lifestyles of the urban lower class and builds organic relationships with the city. Through a positive analysis, it was found that (1) the movement within the city and job experience of the urban lower class change in sync with the dynamism of the city, and (2), in dealing with macro changes and risks, the urban lower class was restricted by personal or household factors and demonstrated differing choices and courses. Within that, the urban lower class continues to stratify and the gaps between classes continue to widen. In particular, the lowest group continues to be more and more marginalized. Moreover, from an analysis of careers by working class, the degree of fluidity of job-holders in self-employed and some employed sectors, and the “rising” image held by the urban lower class differed from logic and policy estimates, as success was found not in formal sectors but in informal economics.