• Thailand’s Senate approved a bill to legalize same-sex marriage, clearing the last legislative hurdle for the country to become the first in Southeast Asia to enact such a law, on June 18, 2024.
• The Senate voted on Tuesday, the first day of the current parliamentary session, suggesting urgency in getting the bill passed.
• The government hosted a celebration at Government House. The ground was decorated with rainbow carpets, flags and a giant balloon in the shape of two hands making a heart sign. The party was joined by politicians, celebrities, diplomats and activists from the LGBTQ+ community and their supporters who rode in a colorful parade of floats from Parliament after the vote.

Thailand’s Senate voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to approve a bill that would legalize same-sex marriage, clearing the last legislative hurdle for the country to become the first in Southeast Asia to enact such a law.

Thailand has a reputation for acceptance and inclusivity but has struggled for decades to pass a marriage equality law. Thai society largely holds conservative values, and members of the LGBTQ community say they face discrimination in everyday life.

The government and state agencies are also historically conservative, and advocates for gender equality have had a hard time pushing lawmakers and civil servants to accept change.

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Thailand will become the third place in Asia, after Taiwan and Nepal, to allow same-sex marriage. The marriage equality bill, which grants full legal, financial and medical rights for marriage partners of any gender, sailed through the House of Representatives right before the previous parliamentary session concluded in April with the approval of 400 of the 415 members who were present.

It passed its final reading in the Senate on Tuesday with the approval of 130 of the 152 members in attendance, with 4 voting against it and 18 abstaining.

The bill now needs the pro forma endorsement of King Maha Vajiralongkorn, followed by its publication in the Government Gazette, which will set a date within 120 days when it becomes effective.

The timing of the Senate’s vote on Tuesday, the first day of the current parliamentary session, suggests the urgency in getting the bill passed. The legislation will amend the country’s Civil and Commercial Code to replace gender-specific words such as “men and women” with gender-neutral words such as “individual.”

But it was not approved without a hitch. One member of the Senate, retired army Gen. Worapong Sa-nganet, argued that the gender-specific terms should still be included in the law along with the gender-neutral terms. He said excluding them would be a severe “subversion of the institution of family” in Thailand.

After the vote, Plaifah Kyoka Shodladd, an 18-year-old who identifies as non-binary, took the floor and thanked everyone who supported the legislation, calling it a “force of hope” that will help Thailand become more accepting of diversity.

“Today, love trumps prejudice,” Plaifah said.

The government, confident of the bill’s passage, announced several days ago it would host a celebration of the occasion later Tuesday at Government House. The ground in front of the main building was decorated with rainbow carpets, flags and a giant balloon in the shape of two hands making a heart sign. The party was joined by politicians, celebrities, diplomats and activists from the LGBTQ+ community and their supporters who rode in a colorful parade of floats from Parliament after the vote.

Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, who could not join the event because he recently tested positive for COVID-19, wrote his congratulations on social media platform X.

“I am proud of the collective effort of all stakeholders which reiterates the power of ‘unity in diversity’ of the Thai society. We will continue our fight for social rights for all people regardless of their status,” he wrote.

Passing the law is a “triumph for justice and human rights,” said Mookdapa Yangyuenpradorn of the human rights organization Fortify Rights.

“The Thai government must now focus on ensuring swift and effective implementation of this law to safeguard LGBTI+ rights,” she said. “Marriage equality is fundamental to human dignity, and it is essential that Thailand protects these rights without delay or discrimination.”

The government led by the Pheu Thai party, which took office last year, has made marriage equality one of its main goals. It made a major effort to identify itself with the annual Bangkok Pride parade earlier this month, in which thousands of people celebrated in one of Bangkok’s busiest commercial districts.

A total of 77 organisations will receive funds from Austrian-German heiress Marlene Engelhorn’s inheritence.

A group tasked with giving away much of Austrian-German heiress Marlene Engelhorn’s inheritance money has announced who is benefitting.

The 32-year-old activist who advocates for higher taxes on the rich made headlines in January when she announced she would give away 25 million euros ($26.8m) – the bulk of her inheritance.

She entrusted a team to set up a citizens council of 50 Austrians to come up with ideas on how to give away her wealth.

A total of 77 organisations that fight poverty and work towards improving environmental protection, education, integration, health and affordable housing in Austria are receiving money, the group said on Tuesday.

Over a couple of years, individual organisations will receive amounts ranging from 40,000 euros ($43,000) to 1.6 million euros ($1.7m).

The heiress is a descendant of Friedrich Engelhorn from the family that founded BASF, the German chemical and pharmaceutical giant. She inherited millions when her grandmother died in 2002.

Engelhorn had said even before her grandmother died that she wished to hand out about 90 percent of her inheritance.

“If politicians don’t do their job and redistribute, then I have to redistribute my wealth myself,” she said in a statement in January.

“Many people struggle to make ends meet with a full-time job and pay taxes on every euro they earn from work. I see this as a failure of politics, and if politics fails, then the citizens have to deal with it themselves.”

Engelhorn did not participate in Tuesday’s news conference after withdrawing from the process once the council was launched.

From March to June, 50 Austrians were paid to meet on six weekends in the city of Salzburg to develop solutions “in the interests of society as a whole”.

Four members of the council shared their experiences on Tuesday, saying they enjoyed the “democratic project”, hailing it as an “exciting challenge” to find solutions to pressing issues “as equals” and based on consensus.

The youngest participant, 17-year-old student Kyrillos Gadalla, said he had “learned a lot” from every conversation he had with different council members, the oldest of whom was 85.

The charity Oxfam said in a report in January that the world’s billionaires are $3.3 trillion richer than they were in 2020 while nearly five billion people worldwide have grown poorer as it slammed “levels of obscene inequality”.

Addressing the 56th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk also cited Oxfam as saying the wealth of the world’s five richest billionaires has more than doubled since the start of this decade while 60 percent of humanity has grown poorer.

Turk said “4.8 billion people are poorer than they were in 2019”, adding that the wealth gap between men and women globally was $100 trillion.

One leads a team at a financial firm and earns more than her husband. Another is pursuing her dream of becoming a civil servant. A third is a budding influencer who aspires to be the family breadwinner.

Each woman is raising one young child and doesn’t want another — no matter what their husbands say, or what incentives the Chinese government, worried about an aging population, is dangling.

Gone are the days of China’s one-child policy. At a recent political forum, President Xi Jinping urged women to take on greater familial responsibilities and “play their unique role in carrying forward the traditional virtues of the Chinese nation.”

These women see a different role for themselves. This generation was born into small families, with many girls growing up as only children — and getting opportunities that used to be given only to boys. Their own mothers, who didn’t have multiple children to care for, typically worked outside the home and set examples for their daughters to do the same.

“I must have my own career.”

Joyce Zhao, 29, Project manager

Joyce Zhao had worked for three years as a project manager at a small tech company in Beijing and was expecting a promotion. But when she became pregnant with her son, Ming, her prospects dimmed.

Her boss, a woman who had been advocating for her to be given a leadership role, left the team while Ms. Zhao was on a five-month maternity leave. When she returned to work, her new boss told her that she was behind and needed to work harder.

“I was drowning in self-doubt, wondering whether having a child at this point in time was the wrong thing to do,” Ms. Zhao said.

But, she said, she never once thought about quitting her job and staying at home.

“I only have myself to rely on,” Ms. Zhao. “I must have my own career and not give it up for anything.”

A few months after Ming’s first birthday, Ms. Zhao, who is 29, decided to leave her company, and landed a job at one of the biggest tech companies in China.

Her husband would like a second child, but Ms. Zhao is not interested. Her days are already grueling enough. Her four-hour commute to work and long hours mean she gets home way past Ming’s bedtime. She rises at 6:30 a.m. to have one hour to herself to read and exercise, and one hour to play and have breakfast with her son.

After college, Ms. Zhao set aside her dream of becoming a civil servant to pursue a higher-paying job. Now, having checked off marriage and childbearing, she plans to study for the notoriously difficult civil servant exam.

“I divide my time, energy and money into different parts, saving the biggest part for myself, then the rest go to my parents, husband and son,” Ms. Zhao said. “I can’t let them take all of me.”

“I see no benefits to having two children.”

Guo Chunlei, 32, Influencer

Before Guo Chunlei got married, she worked at a bank in the eastern city of Hangzhou, making about $2,000 a month, decent by Chinese standards. Her parents bought her a small apartment and a car, so she spent most of her paycheck on beauty, fashion and traveling.

When she decided to have a baby in 2022, her husband and in-laws, who ran a booming family business in construction, encouraged her to switch to a less demanding job to have more time for the child. Ms. Guo agreed and joined a publicly traded company as an accountant. But the work was repetitive and unfulfilling, and she was earning only about a third of what she used to make.

The steep pay cut became a bigger and bigger problem. As her daughter, Tianyi, grew up, expenses began soaring. Early education classes alone ate up a third of her salary.

Seeking extra money, and a sense of purpose, Ms. Guo started a mom-influencer account on the lifestyle app Xiaohongshu last year. A post she composed about planning a traditional Chinese birthday party for her daughter got tens of thousands of views and opened the door to brand collaborations.

She now spends weekday evenings writing captions, editing photos and doing product research. Photo shoots with Tianyi in nearby parks have become a weekend family activity.

Ms. Guo’s account has amassed more than 10,000 followers and brings in more money from product sponsorships than her day job. She’s considering becoming an influencer full time, and would like to take over as her family’s main provider.

Ms. Guo recalls her own parents sacrificing to provide for her and her younger brother. It made her determined to follow a different path.

“I see no benefits to having two children, for either myself or for Tianyi,” she said.

“I want to make something of myself.”

Tang Pingjuan, 36, Financial manager

Like many working women in China today, Tang Pingjuan, 36, has higher expectations than did many of the women who came before her.

Growing up under the old one-child policy, she got the undivided attention of her father, a train driver, and her mother, a teacher, she recalls. And like many girls in her generation, she was given opportunities that had once been reserved for boys.

When it came time to attend college, Ms. Tang went hundreds of miles away from home to pursue a degree in mathematics, a field dominated by men. (Nearly a third of Chinese women have college degrees now, up from fewer than 1 percent in 1990.)

After graduating, Ms. Tang landed a job in finance and then, at age 25, took a year off and used her savings to travel to more than a dozen countries. Now 36, she leads a team at a private financial company in Guangzhou, the bustling metropolis where she lives with her husband and 4-year-old daughter, Ning.

Ms. Tang earns more than her husband and makes investment decisions for the family.

Six months after Ning was born, Ms. Tang returned to her office, leaving the baby in the care of a grandmother. On weekends, the family likes splurging on “staycations” at luxury hotels.

Lately, she has been considering a promising job opportunity in the nearby city of Shenzhen, which could mean being separated from her family. Her husband and in-laws oppose the move, but Ms. Tang doesn’t want to be held back. She has not ruled out a second child altogether, she said, but it is not something she is considering now.

“I feel selfish for putting myself before my family, but life is long and I want to make something of myself,” she said.