Influential Factors towards Political Participation of Thai Local Senior Citizens

Abstract

The purposes of this study were to investigate the levels of knowledge and political participation of local senior citizens and discriminant factors inhibiting the participation in local politics of senior citizens. The population of this quantitative research was senior citizens aged over 60 years old in Nakhon Pathom province. The sample size of 420 senior citizens was drawn by a multi-stage random sampling technique. A questionnaire was used as a research instrument. The findings revealed that a majority of senior citizens participated in a local politics at a low-to-moderate level (60.95%), followed by a high level (39.05%). Regarding their knowledge about political participation, the findings revealed that both groups of participants were most aware about rights in political participation. For political participation, both groups showed that they had low engagement in political auditing and local politics activities. Discriminant analysis of two groups revealed influencing predictors of local political participation among senior citizens in the following order: were (1) knowledge of duties, (2) knowledge of freedoms, (3) being informed about political participation, (4) knowledge of rights, and (5) income. The discriminant analysis of influential factors on local political participation of senior citizens had its discriminant power at a high level of 80.70%. The study revealed that the government must promote and prioritize political participation by providing knowledge of political rights, duties, and freedoms.