PATRICK DEVAHASTIN

Born and raised in Bangkok with a Thai-Cantonese upbringing. I was raised by my Cantonese maternal grandma, who emigrated from Hongkong in the 1930s. Unfortunately, I cannot speak Cantonese. My grandma refused to teach any of her descendants Cantonese due to the then-xenophobia against Chinese in Thailand. Her decision inspired me to study discrimination issues in Thailand. 

 

Besides my family background, I was fortunate enough to be sent to a bilingual school in my early years. As a result, I have been exposed to Anglo-Saxon culture since I was 6 or 7. I also travelled back and forth between UK and Thailand during my teenage years and ended up studying English there when I was 18. After returning from England, I pursued an Economics degree in English at Thammasat. During those years, I visited LSE, UCLA, and the University of Richmond (VA) during my undergrad years. Later, I pursued an MSc Economics degree at Warwick and learned more about labour economics (thanks to my then-supervisor, Prof. Roland Rathelot). He introduced me to correspondence studies which enabled me to study discrimination in the labour market in detail.

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Afterwards, I returned to Thailand and spent a year studying German (zum Spaß) at Goethe-Institut and a year as a research assistant to Thammasat University's lecturers. I was able to handle three to four projects simultaneously. The most impactful project that changed my life is the project with Equitable Education Fund. This project allowed me to travel around Thailand (including the conflicted area like Pattani and Yala) to interview students with disadvantaged backgrounds. Working with Dr. Pimonpan Isarabhakdi, I gained a lot of qualitative research skills from her.

 

Presently, I am a MEXT Scholarship recipient and am doing a PhD at Hiroshima University under Prof. Yoshihiko Kadoya. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I shifted my research to health economics and produced papers on loneliness and vaccine hesitancy issues in Japan. Now I am exploring the labour aspect of loneliness studies. I am curious about the relationship between loneliness and the change in employment status among workers during this pandemic.