Formerly in demand as housemaids and service workers, by the 1980s they
began filling the demand for a semi-skilled factory workforce for the labour
intensive low-end manufacturing (textiles, food-processing, electronic
equipment assembly) which drove the export surge. Women were an essential
agent in Thailand’s manufacturing export boom, accounting for 80 per
cent of employment in the ten leading export sectors (Bell 1997). For
young village women, factory work was far superior (in income and status)
to the demeaning status and restrictive conditions of domestic service (Mills
1999: 116). Outnumbering men in the migration flows into Bangkok, a
high proportion of females (nearly 50 per cent) were in the 10–19 year
age groups – the majority were from the poorest of Thailand’s provinces
in the northeast (ESCAP 1988: 29–31).