Household Crowding and Family Relations in Bangkok

Abstract

Cities in developing countries are growing ever larger and more dense, fostering congested household environ- ments. Using data from Bangkok, this paper examines the effect of household crowding on multiple measures of family relations, looking at the possible costs. The data show that objective household crowding does increase marital instability and arguments, and parent-child tensions. Subjective household crowding affects not only these three aspects offamily relations, but also results in more frequent disciplining of children. These effects are largely mediated by psychological stress. The paper rejects the argument that subjective crowding is an effect, rather than a cause, of marital and family relations, and shows little difference between wives' and husbands' reactions to crowding. The consequences of household crowding, generally found to be selective and modest in North America and Europe, are stronger in Bangkok, a city with crowded conditions more typical of less devel- oped nations. From Durkheim ((1893) 1947) forward, most theories of social integration have viewed population size and density as facilitating the family's role as a central mechanism for the stabilization of individuals and the maintenance of broader social networks. Crowding re- search, especially that concerning the household or the primary environment (Stokols 1978), has drawn attention to the obverse (Booth 1976; Gove, Hughes, and Galle 1979; Mil- gram 1970), stressing the negative effects on close social bonds when there is crowding. The potential negative effect of crowding is a salient issue in less developed countries where urban populations continue to grow. In this paper we extend prior work on household crowding as it affects families. While most of what we know about the effects of human crowding is based on North American and European studies, we seek to extend this knowledge base by presenting analyses of data col- lected in Bangkok, Thailand, a city in which average households are four times as crowded as those in North America. Cross-cultural research such as this has the potential not only to increase the variance in the variables of interest, but to test the generalizability of explana- tions. With Thai data, we can more precisely assess the costs when household crowding reaches levels of the magnitude typical of the non-Western world.