19 Nevertheless, fulfilling the rights of all children
without any discrimination in Indonesia – a large country that has adopted a system of
decentralized government – remains challenging. Indonesia covers 3,544,744 square kilometres of
ocean and 1,910,931.32 square kilometres of land, and comprises 17,504 islands. Administratively,
Indonesia consists of 33 provinces Table 1.2 and 483 autonomous districts and cities kabupaten
and kota. Unavoidably, regional variation in natural resources, infrastructure development
and the socio-political landscape, compounded by poverty and disparities, hold back the rate
progress towards realizing children’s rights equally across regions, urbanrural locations,
socio-economic status and community groups. While both children and poverty have always been
the focus of Indonesia’s development, there has been no analysis of the condition of children living
in poverty in Indonesia. This report is intended as an initial step to fill this gap by presenting and
discussing the findings of the Child Poverty and Disparity Study in Indonesia. This report consists
of seven chapters. This first chapter, ‘Children and Development’, serves as an introduction to the
whole report. An explanation of the background of the study is then followed by a description of
the contextual background of the demographic, political, socio-economic and macroeconomic
policy settings that potentially influence children’s well-being in Indonesia. Chapter 2,
‘Children and Poverty’, presents the findings of an analysis of children’s poverty and deprivation
based on available national data sets in addition to qualitative case studies. This chapter portrays
the conditions and trends in child poverty in terms of income, non-income and non-material
deprivation. This chapter also contains an analysis of the incidence of multiple-deprivation
and the correlations among the various forms of deprivation. The four following chapters –
chapters 3 to 6 – present information on the four pillars of children’s well-being, analysing
the links between policies and outcomes relating to each of the four pillars, namely:
‘Health and Nutrition’ Chapter 3, ‘Education’ Chapter 4, ‘Child Protection’ Chapter 5, and
‘Social Protection’ Chapter 6. Finally, Chapter 7, ‘Addressing Child Poverty and Disparities’,
presents proposed strategies for addressing inadequacies in existing policies and efforts to
reduce child poverty and narrow the disparities.
1 2
3 4
5 6
7 8
9
10 11
12 13
14 15
16 17
18 19
20 21
22 23
24 25
26
27 28
29 30
31 32
33
Province
Aceh North Sumatra
West Sumatra Riau
Jambi South Sumatra
Bengkulu Lampung
Bangka Belitung Islands
Riau Islands Jakarta
West Java Central Java
Yogyakarta East Java
Banten Bali
Province
West Nusa Tenggara East Nusa Tenggara
West Kalimantan Central Kalimantan
South Kalimantan East Kalimantan
North Sulawesi Central Sulawesi
South Sulawesi
Southeast Sulawesi Gorontalo
West Sulawesi Maluku
North Maluku West Papua
Papua
Area thousand
km2
56.50 72.43
42.22 87.84
45.35 60.30
19.80 37.74
16.42 8.08
0.74 36.93
32.80 3.13
46.69 9.02
5.45
Area thousand
km2
19.71 46.14
120.11 153.56
37.53 194.85
13.93 68.09
46.12 36.76
12.17 16.79
47.35 39.96
114.57 309.93
Population millions
4.49 12.98
4.85 5.54
3.09 7.45
1.72 7.61
1.22 1.68
9.61 43.05
32.38 3.46
37.48 10.63
3.89
Population millions
4.50 4.68
4.40 2.21
3.63 3.55
2.27 2.64
8.03
2.23 1.04
1.16 1.53
1.04 0.76
2.83
Number of districts
23 30
19 11
11 15
10 11
7 7
6 26
35 5
38 7
9
Number of districts
10 20
14 14
13 14
15 11
24
12 6
5 11
8 9
27
Table 1.2: List of provinces in Indonesia
Source:BadanPusatStatistikBPS–StatisticsIndonesiaandMinistryofHomeAffairs,2011 Note:2010PopulationCensus,preliminaryigures
20
3 United Nations Children’s Fund, GlobalStudyonChildPovertyandDisparities2007–2008Guide, Global Policy Section, UNICEF, New York, 2007 available at: www.unicef.orgsocialpolicyfilesUNICEFGlobalStudyGuide.pdf, last accessed 19 June 2012
1.2 Methods
This report is developed based on a study of child poverty and disparities in Indonesia that
was conducted from July 2010 to June 2011. The study serves as a pioneering effort to provide a
holistic assessment of children living in poverty in Indonesia. Addressing and focusing more
attention on the poorest and most disadvantaged children will provide significant support to
strengthen policy formulation aimed at fulfilling the rights of children, increasing children’s well-
being, and achieving more sustainable long-term poverty reduction.
The main objectives of the study were two-fold. The first was to present evidence-based analysis
of the conditions of ‘children living in poverty’ using available quantitative and qualitative data,
including narrative evidence from children and other stakeholders. The second was to identify
the gaps and opportunities in national, and to a lesser extent regional, institutional settings and
policies in order to more effectively support the fulfillment of the rights of children. By analysing
outcomes and policies together, particularly the links between them, the aim of the study was
to generate knowledge on what policies and programmes have most effectively supported the
rights of all children, girls and boys, in different contexts. At the same time, by exploring
different dimensions of poverty, the results contribute to the understanding of how progress
in reducing one aspect of poverty could promote progress in others.
The term ‘poverty’ used in the study refers not only to the monetary dimension but also to
a multidimensional condition of deprivation. According to UNICEF, as stated in
TheStateof theWorld’sChildren2005, the working definition
of child poverty is as follows: “Children living in poverty experience
deprivation of the material, spiritual and emotional resources needed to survive,
develop and thrive, leaving them unable to enjoy their rights, achieve their full potential
or participate as full and equal members of society.” UNICEF, 2005, p. 18
Regarding the definition of ‘child’, the study follows Indonesian Law No. 232002 on Child
Protection and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child CRC, which both state
that a child is a person below the age of 18 years.
The focus of the study is at the national level, although disaggregated data from the provincial
and district levels are presented where possible. Most of the analysis was conducted using
the available national data sets, particularly the National Socio-Economic Survey known
in Indonesia by the acronym SUSENAS, in addition to the Indonesian Demographic and
Health Surveys IDHS, known in Indonesia by the acronym SDKI and Basic Health Research
known in Indonesia as RISKESDAS. Additional data and information were also collected from
the official statistics of relevant line ministries and non-government organizations NGOs.
These included government regulations, policies, programmes and budgets, as well as relevant
studies and assessments. Furthermore, primary data were collected by way of small qualitative
case studies carried out in two kelurahan urban precincts in the district of North Jakarta and
two rural villages in the district of East Sumba. The case studies were merely intended to
provide snapshots of the realities facing poor children and poor communities in urban and
rural settings; they are not representative of conditions across the whole country. The
approach and methods of the study followed the UNICEF
GlobalStudyonChildPoverty andDisparities2007–2008Guide, with some
modification to adjust for data availability and the Indonesian context.
3
A detailed explanation of the approach and methods is presented in
Appendix 1, and descriptions of the qualitative case study areas are presented in Appendix 2.
21
1.3 Children in Indonesia: Demographic context
Indonesia is a populous country characterized by a young age structure. According to the
preliminary results of the 2010 population census, the population of Indonesia is
approximately 237.6 million people. It is the fourth most populous country in the world,
after China 1.33 billion, India 1.17 billion and the United States 310 million. During the past
decade, Indonesia’s population increased by an average of 1.58 per cent annually; slightly
more slowly than the annual average increase of 1.63 per cent during 1990–2000. The population
pyramids for 1990, 2000 and 2010 Figure 1.1 show that the Indonesian population remains
predominantly young, although the proportion of youth has tended to decrease. The proportion of
children aged under 18 years has continuously declined from 43 per cent in 1990 to 37 per cent
in 2000, and to 34 per cent in 2010. Nevertheless, the absolute number of children has increased
4 According to estimation based on data from the 2009 SUSENAS National Socio-Economic Survey, which will be used for most of the analysis in this study, the total number of children was 79.418 million around 37 per cent of the total population. One possible reason for the difference between the
two estimates is that SUSENAS does not cover children in special circumstances institutional childcare, dormitories, non-permanent residences, etc.. See further explanation in Appendix 1.
during the last decade: from 74 million in 2000 to around 81.3 million in 2010.
4
As reflected in Figures 1.1 and 1.2, the largest proportion of
children is within the age group of 5–9 years, and the proportion of boys is always larger than girls
under the age of 18 Figure 1.3.
The regional distribution of population, including children, is very uneven and Java is still home
to most of Indonesia’s population, as shown by the data in Table 1.3. Although the proportions
of the population living in Sumatra, Sulawesi, Kalimantan, Maluku and Papua have increased,
by 2010 those living in Java still accounted for more than half of the total population. Moreover,
Java remains the most crowded island, while Papua is the least crowded. On average,
Indonesia’s population density in 2010 was 124 people per square kilometre. Among the
provinces, the densest population was recorded in Jakarta, which had 14,440 people per square
kilometre. West Papua, meanwhile, had the least dense population with only eight people per
Source:BPS–StatisticsIndonesia,variousyears Note:Preliminaryiguresfromthe2010PopulationCensus
Age 75+
70-74 65-69
60-64 55-59
50-54 45-49
40-44 35-39
30-34 25-29
20-24 15-19
10-14
5-9 0-4
Age 75+
70-74 65-69
60-64 55-59
50-54 45-49
40-44 35-39
30-34 25-29
20-24 15-19
10-14
5-9 0-4
Age 75+
70-74 65-69
60-64 55-59
50-54 45-49
40-44 35-39
30-34 25-29
20-24 15-19
10-14
5-9 0-4
7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1990
Female Female
Female Male
Male Male
2000 2010
Figure 1.1: Age structure of the population by sex, 1990, 2000 and 2010
22
Figure 1.3: Sex ratio estimates by single age, 1990, 2000 and 2010
1.3 1.2
1.2 1.1
1.1 1.0
1.0 0.9
0.9 0.8
Sex ratio female : male
Age
1990 2000
2010
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 Source:EstimatesbasedonBPS–StatisticsIndonesiadataFigure1.1
square kilometre. More than half of Indonesia’s children also live in Java, and the provinces
with the largest numbers of children are West Java, East Java and Central Java. However,
the provinces with the largest proportions of children in their populations are located
in eastern Indonesia, including provinces in Maluku, Papua and Sulawesi, and especially the
province of East Nusa Tenggara Figure 1.4.
5,000,000 4,500,000
4,000,000 3,500,000
3,000,000 2,500,000
2,000,000 T
otal population
Age 1990
2000 2010
Figure 1.2: Population estimates by single age, 1990, 2000 and 2010
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 Source:EstimatesbasedonBPS–StatisticsIndonesiadataFigure1.1
The regional distribution of population, including children, is very uneven and Java is still home
to most of Indonesia’s population, as shown by the data in Table 1.3. Although the proportions
of the population living in Sumatra, Sulawesi, Kalimantan, Maluku and Papua have increased,
by 2010 those living in Java still accounted for more than half of the total population. Moreover,
Java remains the most crowded island, while Papua is the least crowded. On average,