Search

"The emergence of fast-growing peri-urban regions and corridors joining large cities has been a feature of rapid urban growth in Asia in the last fifty years. These areas have been characterised by a mixture of urban and rural activities and by strong rural-urban linkages. This paper uses data from the 1980 and 1990 Indonesian Censuses to measure the extent to which this process has been occurring on Java in the intervening decade. It calculates and categorises the absolute and proportional increase in the urban populations of each kabupaten in Java, and examines some of the reasons for the emerging patterns. The paper concludes with a discussion of the policy implications of the findings."

Beginning with a discussion of the sources and quality of Indonesian age data by sex, this paper examines the changes in the functional age groups of the population of Indonesia from 1971 to the year 2005, and the implications of these changes for education, labour force participation, dependency ratios and fertility. Data for the period 1971 to 1985 are based on actual enumerations, while those for the period 1990 to 2005 are based on projections. Although he provisional totals of the 1990 Census had been released before the publication of this paper. their breakdown by age was still not available. The functional age categories discussed in the paper include the pre-school years, the primary and intermediate school ages, the teenage years, the reproductive ages of women, the principal working ages and the post-work years. It concludes with a discussion of various policy and planning implications of these changes. 1 An earlier draft of this paper was presented to the Special Meeting on Indonesian Populati...

This paper investigates the effect of early school experience on later educational attainment. Using the Indonesia Family Life Survey (IFLS), we find that students who repeat a grade at primary sch...

"Beginning with a discussion of the sources and quality of Indonesian age data by sex, this paper examines the changes in the functional age groups of the population of Indonesia from 1971 to the year 2005, and the implications of these changes for education, labour force participation, dependency ratios and fertility. Data for the period 1971 to 1985 are based on actual enumerations, while those for the period 1990 to 2005 are based on projections. Although the provisional totals of the 1990 Census had been released before the publication of this paper, their breakdown by age was still not available. The functional age categories discussed in the paper include the pre-school years, the primary and intermediate school ages, the teenage years, the reproductive ages of women, the principal working ages and the post-work years. It concludes with a discussion of various policy and planning implications of these changes."

Analysis of urban developments in Indonesia has been hampered in the past by weak data. Recently, the National Urban Development Strategy (NUDS) project has generated a set of improved data. This paper aims at elaborating and supplementing the NUDS study. After a discussion of definitional problems, an analysis is carried out of urban growth rates at the provincial level. Private investment is shown to be a principal determinant of urban growth rates. Other significant determinants are rural immigration and the present level of urbanisation. Private investment is shown to be strongly biased towards provinces with large urban areas. In addition, polarisation is studied at the level of individual cities. It is found that a period of rapidly increasing polarisation has come to an end during the last decade. 1The paper has benefited from comments of Anne Booth and two unknown referees. I also acknowledge my gratitude to Sudarno for his assistance with data collection. Possible remaining errors are my own resp...

* The population projections upon which this paper is based were prepared while the author was a staff associate of the Population Council assigned to the Population Studies Centre of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (LEKNAS) in Jakarta, Indonesia. The author is grateful for the assistance provided by Dr Suharso and the rest of the staff at LEKNAS. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the Population Association of America in St Louis, April 1977.

Remittances from urban informal sector earnings are an important contribution to rural income in densely populated Java. This paper examines a village economy in which a high proportion of households rely on such remittances. It analyses household income and income per capita according to whether or not households have at least one circular migrant, and by the sex and age of the household head. Remittances from short-term circular migration push many households into the middle and upper income ranges. However, the wealthiest households continue to rely on traditional high earning activities and do not depend on remittances. The poorest households are scattered among those who rely on remittances and those still totally dependent upon traditional low earning village activities, regardless of the sex and age of the household head. 1 This paper is based on research conducted for a Ph.D. thesis in the Demography Department of the Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, and jointly ...

This paper examines the Indonesian overseas employment program. It is limited to overseas deployment through the official channels, i.e. organised by licensed labour suppliers and approved by govemment authorities. The main desunation of this official labour migration is the Middle East. Indonesian officials have indicated that the government aims to increase overseas employment and to shift deployment from houseworkers to better skilled workers. It is argued in the paper that, in view of a shrinking labour market for migrants, even limited realisation of these hopes would depend upon some distinct changes in the overseas employment program. 1 The Research and Documentation Centre for Manpower and Development (RDCMD) conducted research on the prospects for Indonesian workers in the labour market in Saudi Arabia (RDCMD 1986). Parts of the following paper are based on this study. The views expressed are those of the author. The following notes are dedicated to the memory of E.J. Sawong, the late Head of RDC...

Indonesia produces more palm oil and consumes more palm oil per capita than any country in the world. This paper examines the processes through which Indonesia has promoted palm oil consumption and some of the consequences of that transformation. Partial equilibrium modeling shows that Indonesia’s remarkable increase in palm oil consumption since 1985 is not largely attributable to population and income growth. Instead, much of Indonesia’s palm oil consumption growth results from substitution away from coconut oil, a process that was facilitated by government policies around technology, pricing, distribution, and trade. The switch from coconut oil to palm oil in Indonesia was associated with increased land conversions to agriculture and diminished smallholder competitiveness. Despite lower rates of cooking oil substitution in the future, simulations suggest that Indonesia’s total palm oil consumption in 2035 will be at least double that of 2010.

In recent years the school enrolment rates of children aged 13–15 and 16–18 years have increased sharply in Indonesia, not only in urban but also in rural areas. Using various data sets spanning the years from 1993 to 2007, this paper investigates changes in factors associated with the enrolment of secondary school aged children in rural areas. It sheds light on the roles of gender and of neighbourhood and school characteristics, which have rarely been examined in the Indonesian context. The study finds that the disappearance of a gender gap in secondary enrolments between 1993 and 2007 contributed significantly to the rise in the overall enrolment rate. The findings also show that children living in wealthier communities and communities with a high proportion of enrolled children are more likely to attend school. Finally, various school characteristics are shown not to be strongly or consistently correlated with school enrolment.

In this second contribution to the Policy Dialogue, Colin Hunt emphasises the large contribution that oil palm plantations and the pulp and paper industry have been making to Indonesia's economic growth in recent years, notwithstanding the environmental consequences of such activities. The implication is that avoided deforestation can be expected to have a significant negative impact on segments of the population who would benefit from the business and employment opportunities that would otherwise be generated, directly or indirectly. Palm oil companies typically spend about three dollars on goods, services and labour for every dollar of profit. The author argues that any compensation package for avoided deforestation needs to include all the potential beneficiaries of palm oil production, not just the palm oil companies, and to generate economic activity similar to that being replaced. (Ed.)

One of the reasons often given for government policies that promote higher rice prices is the desire to protect farmers and to reduce poverty, particularly in rural areas. The underlying assumption is that farmers benefit from higher rice prices and that helping farmers will reduce poverty since the majority of the rural poor are connected in some way with agriculture. This paper examines the evidence underlying this assumption. I show that only around a quarter of all households plant rice. A large majority of the population, including in rural areas, consume more rice than they produce and most are therefore harmed by higher rice prices. Those that gain from higher prices tend to be farmers with access to slightly larger plots of land. Thus an increase in the rice price constitutes a transfer from the large majority of consumers to a minority of producers at all income levels.

One of the ways in which Indonesians have adapted to economic change over recent decades is through permanent and temporary movement within and outside the country. This paper focuses on the effects which the crisis that started in 1997 has had upon population mobility among different groups and in different areas within the country. It begins by summarising the employment effects of the crisis, as indicated by the 1997 and 1998 National Labour Force Surveys. It then uses results from a number of surveys to identify the changes that have occurred in population mobility in Indonesia during the crisis. In particular it looks at the extent and nature of urban to rural movement, and at patterns of movement between Java and the Outer Islands. Although comprehensive data are lacking, it is argued that population mobility has become an important coping mechanism for confronting the crisis.

This paper examines the changing employment structures in the growing metropolitan region focused on Jakarta It disaggregates the Botabek region surrounding Jakarta into an inner and an outer ring, and finds that the “fringe” growth of Jakarta has come to dominate the pattern of urbanisation in West Java, adding more to the urban population of West Java in the 1980s than did the growth of the West Java capital, Bandung. The increase in employment over the 1980–1990 period differed sharply between Jakarta and the two rings. Employment in DKI Jakarta rose by 52%, in the inner rmg by 425%, and in the outer ring by 36%. Migration patterns indicate that the inner ring was gaining both through city dwellers moving to areas outside the city boundaries and through people moving from elsewhere in Java and further afield. The educational attainment of the workforce in the inner ring rose dramatically, reflecting not only improvements in school facilities within the ring but also in-migration of well educated people.

This paper uses a sample of 6620 women from the 1994 Indonesian Demographic and Health Survey to examine the relationship between female education and child mortality in Indonesia. Female education is measured in terms of both years of education and literacy. Both primary education and secondary schooling significantly decrease the probability of child death, while literacy plays an insignificant role. When the sample is divided into urban and rural locations, primary and secondary education are significant in both areas in reducing the likelihood of a mother experiencing child mortality. The benefits of public and private infrastructure appear to differ in rural and urban areas. The results confirm that investment in female human capital lowers the probability of child mortality.

* The author would like to thank various members of the Research School of Pacific Studies for comments and suggestions on an earlier draft of this study. The views expressed in this paper do not necessarily reflect those of the United Nations or its staff.