00074910012331338913
Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies
ISSN: 0007-4918 (Print) 1472-7234 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cbie20
The Impact of the Crisis on Internal Population
Movement in Indonesia
Graeme Hugo
To cite this article: Graeme Hugo (2000) The Impact of the Crisis on Internal Population
Movement in Indonesia, Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, 36:2, 115-138, DOI:
10.1080/00074910012331338913
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00074910012331338913
Published online: 18 Aug 2006.
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Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies
Vol 36 No 2, August 2000, pp. 115–38
THE IMPACT OF THE CRISIS ON INTERNAL
POPULATION MOVEMENT IN INDONESIA
Graeme Hugo
University of Adelaide
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.
INTRODUCTION
The last two decades in Indonesia have seen a substantial increase in
population mobility. Increasingly Indonesians have adapted to shifts in
the distribution of job opportunities either by adopting temporary
mobility strategies or by moving more or less permanently. They have
ranged over an increasingly wide area in their search for job opportunities,
so that movement within the country (Hugo 1997) and outside it (Hugo
1995) to seek work has become more commonplace. It is not surprising,
then, that one of the ways Indonesians have adapted to the effects of the
economic crisis since 1997 is through moving, on a temporary or, to a
lesser extent, permanent basis, away from areas where these effects have
been severe and into areas where the crisis has had a lesser impact or a
y [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji], [UNIVERSITAS MARITIM RAJA ALI HAJI TANJUNGPINANG, KEPULAUAN RIAU] at 22:06 19
116
Graeme Hugo
positive one. The present paper focuses on the effects of the crisis on
internal migration; its influence on international migration is discussed
in a companion paper (Hugo 1999a).
There were significant problems in measuring internal population
mobility in Indonesia even in pre-crisis times (Hugo 1982), but there is
even less information available about the post-crisis situation, because
no census or other major data collection involving migration has been
carried out. The major sources employed here to investigate changes in
internal mobility are:
• a 1998 study of 42 villages in 7 kabupaten covering 1,662 migrant
households (Gantjang et al. 1999) initiated by the United Nations
Development Programme;
• the first round of a central bureau of statistics (BPS) 100 village study
reported on elsewhere in this paper (Urip 1998);
• a number of case studies of the impact of the crisis in villages (e.g.
Breman 1998, Romdiati et al. 1998);
• the Indonesian Family Life Survey (IFLS) undertaken by the
University of Indonesia, the Rand Corporation and the University of
California, Los Angeles; this involved a baseline survey of 7,000
households in 13 provinces in 1993, and two follow-ups in August
1997 – February 1998 and August–December 1998 (Frankenberg,
Thomas and Beegle 1999; Frankenberg, Beegle, Thomas and Suriastini
1999);
• interviews with key respondents, field visits to villages affected by
the crisis in Java and discussions with government officials and
international agencies with field experience of the effects of the crisis.
One of the most distinctive features of Indonesia’s krismon (monetary
crisis) is the ‘patchy’ nature of its impact. A great deal of debate about
the effect of the crisis has been influenced by the fact that parts of
Indonesia appear to have been little affected by it. In particular, areas of
the Outer Islands dependent upon cash crops or resource extraction
activities have been less subject than Java to the decline in domestic
demand, and continue to export to world markets. Similarly, agricultural
landowners in Java, especially those who did not suffer from El Niñoinduced droughts in 1997, may not have had their incomes reduced by
the crisis.
However, among others the impact of the crisis has been heavy. Some
argue that it is predominantly an urban crisis, since the collapse of demand
and of the financial system has produced job losses mainly in urban areas.
The urban and rural economies and labour markets are closely linked,
y [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji], [UNIVERSITAS MARITIM RAJA ALI HAJI TANJUNGPINANG, KEPULAUAN RIAU] at 22:06 19
The Impact of the Crisis on Internal Population Movement in Indonesia
117
however. Before the crisis, more than a quarter of rural householders in
Java were dependent at least in part on income earned in urban areas by
circulating family members, or on remittances from urban-based relatives.
This reliance on urban-origin funds was heaviest among landless rural
households and those with very small landholdings. Accordingly, a crisis
influencing urban-based employment will have a substantial impact in
rural Java, and it is clear that the crisis has hit many parts of rural Java in
a substantial way.
The last three decades have seen a massive increase in population
mobility. Internal migration data collected in censuses capture only a
part of this mobility, since they do not detect movement within Indonesia’s
provinces, and detect only long-term and permanent movement (Hugo
1982). The proportion of Indonesian males who had ever lived in another
province increased from 6.3 to 11.2% between 1971 and 1995 and that for
females from 5.1 to 10.0% (Hugo 1999b). The literature on internal
migration in Indonesia in the pre-crisis period is unanimous in stressing
the significance of employment trends in shaping population movement
patterns (e.g. Spaan 1999; Hugo 1978; Mantra 1981). Hence, since one of
the most distinctive features of the financial crisis in Indonesia is its patchy
impact, it is likely that a key response to regional and local losses of
employment will be substantial movements of people away from areas
that are hard hit to areas where there is some opportunity to gain
employment on a permanent or temporary basis.
In the present paper the limited information available is analysed to
investigate the extent to which internal migration is being employed as a
strategy to cope with the effects of the crisis. We begin by summarising
some of the employment effects of the crisis that have impinged upon
population movement.
EMPLOYMENT EFFECTS OF THE CRISIS
One of the major characteristics of the crisis is that its impact varies greatly
between areas and between groups. These variations have been well
documented in a number of studies (e.g. Poppele, Sumarto and Pritchett
1999). Several have indicated that the effects of the crisis are especially
severe in urban areas, and in particular those that have seen substantial
retrenchments as a result of capital flight and the cutback of factory output,
cessation of construction activity, and reduction of consumer demand
(Poppele, Sumarto and Pritchett 1999; Thomas, Frankenberg, Beegle and
y [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji], [UNIVERSITAS MARITIM RAJA ALI HAJI TANJUNGPINANG, KEPULAUAN RIAU] at 22:06 19
118
Graeme Hugo
Teruel 1999; Sumarto, Wetterberg and Pritchett 1999; Silvey 1998).
However, the crisis has also impacted upon rural areas for a number of
reasons.
First, a high proportion of rural-based households have over several
decades relied for a significant part of their income on remittances from
urban-based relatives or on off-farm work carried out by family members,
often in rural areas. Hence, the effect of loss of jobs and loss of purchasing
power in urban areas will immediately flow through to the rural sector,
directly through a fall in remittances to households, and indirectly through
the consequent reduction in spending in rural areas.
Second, it is true that to some extent land-rich households have been
protected from the effects of the crisis through the increase in food prices
and through buoyant markets for cash crops such as cocoa and cloves.
However, land-rich families make up a minority of the population
working in rural areas. The 1995 Intercensal Population Survey (Supas)
indicates that before the crisis, 28% of Indonesia’s rural households were
landless (53% in West Java!), and the 1993 Agricultural Census showed a
further 5% owned less than 0.1 ha of land (Ahmed 1999). In West Java,
the largest province by population, 64% of rural households are landless
or land poor. Hence, a substantial part of the nation’s rural population
TABLE 1 Employment of Persons Aged 15 Years and Over by Sector, 1997–98
1997
Sector
1998
‘000
%
Agriculture
Quarrying & mining
Manufacturing
Utilities
Construction
Trade
Transport
Finance
Services
34,790
875
11,009
233
4,185
16,953
4,125
657
12,575
Total
85,402
Source: BPS, Sakernas, 1997 and 1998.
Change
‘000
%
%
40.7
1.0
12.9
0.3
4.9
19.8
4.8
0.8
14.7
39,415
675
9,934
148
3,522
16,814
4,154
618
12,394
45.0
0.8
11.3
0.2
4.0
19.2
4.8
0.7
14.1
+13.3
–2.9
–9.8
–36.6
–15.8
–0.8
+0.7
–5.9
–1.4
100.0
87,674
100.0
+2.7
y [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji], [UNIVERSITAS MARITIM RAJA ALI HAJI TANJUNGPINANG, KEPULAUAN RIAU] at 22:06 19
The Impact of the Crisis on Internal Population Movement in Indonesia
119
cannot take advantage of higher prices for agricultural products and
indeed is disadvantaged by higher food prices and increased competition
for work in the village.
Third, the El Niño drought in 1997–98 affected many rural areas, and
it is not clear that all areas and households affected have fully recovered
from this.
Accordingly, it is clear that the effect of the crisis has been felt in both
rural and urban areas. Ahmed (1999: 12–13) has assembled evidence to
support the contention that overall urban–rural differences in the impact
of the crisis are not great, while Islam (1999) shows that crisis effects vary
considerably in the Outer Islands.
Agriculture has absorbed a substantial proportion of workers
displaced by the crisis, and on the surface this would suggest that there
has been a redistribution of workers from urban to rural areas. Table 1
compares the results of the 1997 and 1998 National Labour Force Surveys
(Sakernas) and indicates that while the overall number of Indonesians
employed increased by 2.7% over this period, there was a decline in the
number working in all industries except agriculture and transport, with
only a minor increase in the latter.
With agriculture absorbing the bulk of labour displaced from other
sectors, as well as new entrants to the labour force, we see a significant
reversal of the pre-crisis pattern in which a falling share of the workforce
was employed in agriculture. Table 2 shows that the proportion of male
workers in agriculture fell from 74.2% in 1961 to 40.1% in 1997, but rose
TABLE 2 Proportion of Workforce Employed in Agriculture, 1961–98
%
1961 Census
1971 Census
1980 Census
1990 Census
1995 Supas
1997 Sakernas
1998 Sakernas
Number (‘000)
Males
Females
Males
Females
74.2
66.4
57.2
50.5
43.3
40.1
44.3
71.2
64.7
54.0
49.2
43.4
41.8
46.0
17,649
17,391
19,961
23,311
21,934
21,248
23,871
6,331
8,429
9,081
12,690
12,079
13,542
15,544
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120
Graeme Hugo
during the crisis to 44.3%. In absolute terms, the number of males
employed in agriculture declined to 21.3 million in 1997 from 23.3 million
in 1990, but increased to 23.9 million in 1998.
Agriculture was the main absorber of labour until recent times. Geertz
(1963) coined the term ‘agricultural involution’ for the distinctive
characteristic of sawah (wet rice) agriculture in Java, which allowed
population increases to be absorbed because:
• increased labour resulted in increased productivity of sawah through
activities such as transplanting, micro control of irrigation and
weeding; and
• there was an associated culture of ‘shared poverty’ whereby the
systems used in sawah were open to all to participate in and were
highly labour intensive.
With increased commercialisation of agriculture the latter aspect
began to break down, and a large share of the workforce came to be
involved in non-agricultural activity. The early 1990s saw the absolute
decline in numbers employed in agriculture already noted. The crisis
has seen a return to exploitation of this involutionary/absorptive capacity
of agriculture, but the question remains whether, given the new
commercialised ways in which it is organised, agriculture can absorb
large numbers of workers on a permanent basis if the crisis continues
over a long period.
It is important to examine where most workers have been absorbed in
agriculture during the crisis years. Table 3 shows the increase in
agricultural workers by province between 1997 and 1998. Virtually all
provinces recorded a rise in their agricultural workforce over the
1997–98 period, with West Nusa Tenggara a minor exception. There were
significant increases in the agricultural workforce of Sumatra (1.1 million
workers) and South Sulawesi (235,000). In Java and Lampung combined,
females outnumber males among the new entrants to the agricultural
workforce (52.1%). This suggests a phenomenon whereby more family
members are being involved in work outside of the home under pressure
of the crisis. West and East Java (each with about 1 million extra
agricultural workers) alone accounted for 44.5% of the new agricultural
jobs created, but there was also substantial expansion in the numbers
employed in agriculture in several other provinces of Java and Sumatra.
Riau has long been a significant magnet for internal migrants, and the
expansion of the agricultural workforce in this province may be associated
with in-migration from elsewhere, especially Java.
y [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji], [UNIVERSITAS MARITIM RAJA ALI HAJI TANJUNGPINANG, KEPULAUAN RIAU] at 22:06 19
The Impact of the Crisis on Internal Population Movement in Indonesia
121
TABLE 3 Change in Agricultural Employment by Province, 1997–98
(‘000)
Males
Females
Total
Province
1997
1998
Increase
1997
1998
Aceh
North Sumatra
West Sumatra
Riau
Jambi
South Sumatra
Bengkulu
Lampung
Sumatra
546
1,211
436
483
344
1,024
224
1,092
580
1,368
498
609
405
1,150
293
1,239
+34
+157
+62
+126
+61
+126
+69
+147
+782
390
1,102
357
234
206
706
174
589
403
1,052
344
271
251
782
213
748
+13
–50
–13
+37
+45
+74
+39
+169
+314
+47
+107
+49
+163
+106
+200
+108
+316
+1,096
Jakarta
West Java
Central Java
Yogyakarta
East Java
Java
6
2,598
3,347
277
4,097
29
3,076
3,652
259
4,631
+23
+478
+305
–18
+534
+1,322
1
1,403
2,132
215
2,588
2
1,928
2,462
240
3,138
+1
+525
+330
+25
+550
+1,431
+24
+1,003
+635
+7
+1,084
+2,753
Bali
West Nusa Tenggara
East Nusa Tenggara
East Timor
Bali–Nusa Tenggara
298
452
637
152
316
454
687
164
+18
+2
+50
+12
+82
247
362
478
100
265
338
483
107
+18
–24
+5
+7
+6
+36
–22
+55
+19
+88
West Kalimantan
Central Kalimantan
South Kalimantan
East Kalimantan
Kalimantan
573
241
342
215
591
236
383
236
+18
–5
+41
+21
+75
441
133
275
85
431
167
314
110
–10
+34
+39
+25
+88
+8
+29
+80
+46
+163
North Sulawesi
Central Sulawesi
South Sulawesi
Southeast Sulawesi
Sulawesi
407
349
1,012
252
448
367
1,146
257
+41
+18
+134
+5
+198
82
176
431
152
99
175
532
168
+17
–1
+101
+16
+133
+58
+17
+235
+21
+331
285
345
364
437
+79
+92
+171
157
312
223
331
+66
+19
+85
+145
+111
+256
+2,057
+4,687
Maluku
Irian
Maluku–Irian
TOTAL
Source: As for table 1.
+2,630
Increase Increase
y [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji], [UNIVERSITAS MARITIM RAJA ALI HAJI TANJUNGPINANG, KEPULAUAN RIAU] at 22:06 19
122
Graeme Hugo
One aspect of the increase in agricultural employment between 1997
and 1998 is that the number of agricultural workers living in urban areas
rose by 45%, while the increase in rural areas was 11%. This meant an
increment of 1.0 million in urban areas and of 3.6 million in rural areas. It
is apparent that temporary movement is involved. On the one hand, in
rural areas the increment includes new entrants to the labour force,
returnees from urban areas and workers displaced from other sectors in
rural areas. Among urban residents employed in agriculture, many in
fact work in agriculture in rural areas through circular migration, while
others farm the many empty lands in and near major urban areas.
Table 4 shows that in urban areas there was a net loss of 90,000 jobs
from the non-agricultural sector between 1997 and 1998. This relatively
small decline reflected the fact that most of the net loss of 1.4 million
displaced by the crisis from the formal sector were able to gain some
employment in the urban informal sector. Geertz (1963) has shown that
the urban informal sector shares many of the involutionary characteristics
of the sawah system.
TABLE 4 Agricultural and Non-agricultural Employment
in Urban and Rural Areas, 1997–98
(‘000)
Agricultural
Non-agricultural
Total
Urban
1997
1998
% change
2,314
3,355
+45.0
27,040
26,950
–0.3
29,354
30,305
+3.2
Rural
1997
1998
% change
32,476
36,060
+11.0
23,576
21,307
–9.6
56,052
57,367
+2.3
Total
1997
1998
% change
34,790
39,415
13.3
50,616
48,257
–4.7
85,406
87,672
+2.7
Source: As for table 1.
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The Impact of the Crisis on Internal Population Movement in Indonesia
123
The decline in non-agricultural employment in the rural sector was
much more substantial, with a net loss of 2.3 million jobs. The crisis greatly
reduced the flow of cash into rural areas, as remittances from urbanbased relatives fell and off-farm work opportunities for village-based
landless people, many of which had been based in urban areas, declined.
As a result, demand for services such as small-scale selling and house
improvement dried up in villages. The resulting loss of non-agricultural
jobs was made up by a net gain of 3.6 million jobs in agriculture in the
rural sector. The agricultural sector absorbed not only displaced workers
from the non-agricultural sector in rural areas, but also new entrants to
the labour force and returnees from urban areas.
The absorptive capacity of the agricultural sector has historically been
substantial, and it would appear that, while some of the rise in numbers
of agricultural workers in the Outer Islands is due to expansion of cash
crops, much of the increase in Java has been involutionary. The question
remains how far agriculture—especially in Java—can reverse the trend
TABLE 5 Changes in Employment by Industry, 1997–98
(‘000)
Males
Sector
Females
1997
(‘000)
1998
(‘000)
Change
%
Agriculture
21,248
Mining
696
Manufacturing 6,103
Utilities
214
Construction
4,037
Trade
8,295
Transport
4,012
Finance
447
Services
7,951
23,871
574
5,482
131
3,386
8,247
4,024
412
7,775
Total
53,902
53,003
Source: As for table 1.
1997
(‘000)
1998
(‘000)
Change
%
+12.3
–17.5
–10.2
–38.8
–16.1
–0.6
+0.3
–7.8
–2.2
13,542
180
4,906
19
148
8,658
113
210
4,624
15,543
101
4,451
17
136
8,570
130
206
4,619
+14.8
–43.9
–9.3
–10.5
–8.1
–1.0
+15.0
–1.9
–0.1
–1.7
32,400
33,773
+4.2
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124
Graeme Hugo
of recent decades towards increasing productivity per worker and
displacement of labour, and restore the former pattern of absorbing the
bulk of the increment in new workers, albeit at a low level of productivity.
Table 5 examines the gender patterns of crisis period employment
changes by sector. It shows that female employment increased faster than
male employment in 1997–98, suggesting that women became more
involved in the workforce outside the home as a response to the crisis.
The bulk of the net increase in female participation was in the agricultural
sector. In considering the migration implications of table 5, it is important
to note the areas where most labour displacement has occurred. There
were major job losses in manufacturing (621,000 males and 455,000
females), construction (650,800 males and 12,400 females) and services
(176,050 males and 4,600 females). It is worth considering further the
losses for men and women in manufacturing and for men in construction.
Table 6 shows that almost half a million jobs in manufacturing
(436,600) were lost in Jakarta–West Java alone. Losses were equally severe
among men and women. Women losing jobs in this sector were mainly
recent migrants from West and Central Java, relatively well educated
and from middle income families in rural areas (Sunaryanto 1998). It is
TABLE 6 Jakarta–West Java: Changes in Employment by Industry, 1997–98
(‘000)
Construction
Manufacturing
1,181
889
–25.1
2,120
1,840
–13.2
55
43
–22.0
1,233
1,076
–12.6
1,236
932
–24.6
3,353
2,916
–13.0
Males
1997
1998
% changea
Females
1997
1998
% changea
Total
1997
1998
% changea
a
Percentage change is calculated for unrounded data.
Source: As for table 1.
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The Impact of the Crisis on Internal Population Movement in Indonesia
125
uncertain what proportion of these women have returned to their villages
and how many have remained in the hope of getting another job, perhaps
receiving support from rural-based families. Certainly, pre-crisis studies
indicated that these women were not attracted to pursuing gainful
occupations in the village; indeed, this prospect was an important factor
pushing this group out (Sunaryanto 1998). In Bekasi, where many of the
manufacturing activities, especially those employing women, were
located, unemployment rose from 6.7 to 13.6% between 1997 and 1998
(Depnaker and BPS 1999: 201). This suggests that there certainly was
some movement of displaced manufacturing workers out of Bekasi, but
that the majority have stayed (the workforce in Bekasi increased from 1.1
million in 1997 to 1.3 million in 1998) and taken up other work or remained
unemployed. The decline in construction employment in Jakarta–West
Java between 1997 and 1998 was even more severe (table 6). Among men
a quarter of such jobs were lost, and this undoubtedly led to significant
return migration from urban areas in the two provinces.
Movement into agriculture was an important strategy adopted in the
face of the net overall loss of more than 2.4 million non-agricultural jobs
between 1997 and 1998. It is clear that population mobility has played a
significant role in this, through people moving permanently or circulating
between urban and rural areas.
TABLE 7 Change in Work Status of Labour Force, 1997–98
Rural
Urban
Total
Change
1997
(‘000)
1998 Change
(‘000)
(%)
1997
(‘000)
1998 Change
(‘000) (%)
(‘000)
Informal sector
Self-employed
Self-employed,
assisted by family/
day labourers
Not paid
41,104
13,103
43,489
13,058
+5.8
–0.3
12,557
6,762
13,852 +10.3 +3,680
7,465 +10.4
+659
14,575
13,426
16,034 +10.0
14,396 +7.2
3,407
2,388
3,656 +7.3 +1,703
2,732 +14.4 +1,214
Formal sector
Employer
Employed
14,948
782
14,165
13,879
804
13,075
Source: As for table 1.
–7.1
+2.7
–7.7
16,797
684
16,112
16,452
722
15,730
–2.2
+5.5
–2.4
–1,413
+59
–1,470
y [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji], [UNIVERSITAS MARITIM RAJA ALI HAJI TANJUNGPINANG, KEPULAUAN RIAU] at 22:06 19
126
Graeme Hugo
There is some debate about the extent to which there has been a flow
of workers from the formal into the informal sector during the crisis.
Table 7 shows, using a somewhat unsatisfactory definition of the informal
sector,1 that there was a net gain of 3.7 million informal sector jobs
between 1997 and 1998 (2.4 million in rural areas and 1.3 million in urban
areas) and a net loss of 1.4 million formal sector jobs.
URBAN AND RURAL MIGRATION AND THE CRISIS
It is apparent from the above that there have been substantial shifts in
type of employment as a result of the crisis, the net effects of which are to
some extent apparent in the 1997 and 1998 Sakernas results. These changes
are not easy to document given the lack of detailed data, but there is
evidence of population movement being associated with many of them.
Population mobility levels have increased over the last three decades
(Hugo 1997). Moreover, there is an established history of Indonesians
adopting a range of mobility strategies to adjust to changes in the labour
market (Hugo 1978, 1981); in particular, pressure on limited jobs in rural
Java has led many to move on a temporary or permanent basis to take
advantage of off-farm job opportunities (Hugo 1978; Mantra 1981; Spaan
1999). During the crisis a variety of strategies have been implemented,
including temporary and permanent moves, to adapt to the changed
labour market conditions outlined above.
In the early days of the crisis, much was made of the potential for
displaced workers in the major urban areas of Java to return to their home
areas in the rural hinterland to obtain work and support from their
communities of origin. However, there are several reasons why this option
was not available or not acceptable to a substantial proportion of the
Indonesian urban population.
First, although a significant proportion (38.5%) of Jakarta’s population
(and that of other cities) was in fact born outside the city, many
contemporary residents of urban Indonesia are two or three generations
removed from their rural origins, and simply do not have the option of
returning, since they do not have contacts with the community of origin
of their parents and grandparents. In many cases the village has little to
offer returning migrants. In 1997 in particular, El Niño and the long
drought meant that agricultural production in many villages was well
below that of previous years, such that Indonesia went from being an
exporter of rice in 1996–97 to needing to import 1.7 million tons of rice in
1998 (Asian Migration News, 6/8/98). In many villages of origin of
migrants there has been a growth of dependency upon remittances from
urban-based relatives.
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The Impact of the Crisis on Internal Population Movement in Indonesia
127
Much of the thinking that the village can act as a ‘safety net’ for
displaced urban workers is based upon the ideas Geertz (1963) developed
in Agricultural Involution. He argued that greater wage flexibility in rural
areas allows displaced labour to be more readily absorbed than in the
modern urban sector. However, since Geertz did his work, rural Indonesia
(especially rural Java) and sawah have been transformed as a result of the
Green Revolution, the commercialisation of rice production and the
proletarianisation of the rural workforce (i.e. its transformation from
subsistence to wage labour). Adoption of new technologies and
agricultural practices has allowed a reduction in the number of workers
in agriculture, despite a substantial increase in production (i.e. the reverse
of Geertz’s involution concept). Social organisation has been transformed
so that traditional arrangements for harvesting and other agricultural
work have largely been replaced by more commercially-based labour
hiring systems.
Thus, the capacity of sawah to absorb large numbers of returning urban
workers, as posited in the Agricultural Involution thesis, has become
increasingly limited. At the same time, the rapid growth of manufacturing
and other urban employment opportunities has tended to pull people
out of agriculture.
Second, discussions with urban displaced workers suggest that
although their options were limited they preferred to remain in the city
rather than return to their village homes. Many had come to the city
precisely because they did not want to work in agriculture. The education
system tends to orient children away from agriculture, so that those who
gain secondary school qualifications generally do not want to work on
farms. Sunaryanto (1998) reports that young women gaining work in
factories in and around Jakarta gave as a reason for migrating their desire
to get away from having to take up an agricultural job.
Many urban residents have capital assets in the city which make it
difficult for them to pack up and return to the village. Furthermore,
migrants who have become used to urban levels of service provision
may be unwilling to go back to situations where services such as schooling
and health are of a lower standard than those they have been using in
the city.
There can be no doubt that the economic crisis has stimulated a
significant urban to rural return migration flow in Java and elsewhere
(e.g. Silvey 1998). However, it has included only a minority of workers
affected by the crisis in urban areas. In Jakarta the city government had a
policy of encouraging return movement. Operation Justisia (Justice) was
aimed at sending unemployed migrants home (JP, 8/2/98). In early 1998
it was estimated that in addition to the 3.2 million Jakarta people who
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Graeme Hugo
went back to their village of origin during Idul Fitri (the post-fasting
celebration), an extra 300,000 new migrants would be coming back with
them (JP, 7/2/98). For a short time the government of Jakarta met buses
and sent back migrants who lacked Jakarta identification cards. In January,
627 were rounded up and returned (JP, 7/2/98).
Breman (1998) found that the social networks in the village are not as
strong as assumed by urban-based decision makers, and that many who
go back do not have land or strong links with land owners. He argues
that the safety net has been lost to urban migrants, and that the
government has chosen to accept two convenient notions that his village
work indicates now have little credence: that the safety net of the village
is intact for urban migrants; and that urban centres continue to be
anchored in rural society.
The 1999 Kecamatan Rapid Poverty Assessment survey interviewed
three government officials in each of Indonesia’s 4,025 kecamatan about
migration and its impact. This study (Sumarto, Wetterberg and Pritchett
1999: 18) found that:
• both urban and rural kecamatan officials reported a greater than normal
inflow of males returning because they had lost jobs elsewhere;
• there was a smaller increase in the number of women returning; this
may indicate that often the male household head returns to the village
for work but leaves his family in the city;
• less out-migration was reported than in the previous year.
Other smaller-scale studies also support the finding of increased
return migration. UNSFIR (1999: 65) reports the suggestion that there
are villages where the population has recently expanded by up to onethird because of return migration. The Seven Kabupaten Study (Gantjang
et al. 1999) also points to the significance of return migration, as do
several village studies (e.g. Romdiati, Handayani and Rahayu 1998;
Breman 1998). Clearly much of this return migration is being absorbed
in the agricultural sector. In the Outer Islands, Silvey’s (1998 and
forthcoming) study in Ujung Pandang indicates a substantial flow of men
and women back to their village of origin in response to the crisis.
A report of a seminar on the impact of the crisis on village
development in Java (Sandee 1999: 142) indicated that there were:
… mixed reports on the significance of return migration. In some
villages more than 50 percent of the migrants had returned, while
in the others the majority stayed active in the urban economy.
There were examples of rural wages being adjusted downwards
to accommodate more workers. However, there was also some
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The Impact of the Crisis on Internal Population Movement in Indonesia
129
evidence of migrants who failed to integrate and, consequently,
had gone back to the cities. Most contributors stressed, however,
that the majority of migrants remain in the cities, although the
crisis is likely to have had a negative impact on the amount of
their remittances.
In sum, there is no clear picture yet of the extent of permanent
redistribution of population in Java from urban to rural areas. The results
of the 1997 and 1998 Sakernas show that over the 1997–98 period the
urban population aged 15+ grew by 51.3%, while the rural population
grew by only 0.9%, but several field studies (e.g. Gantjang et al. 1999)
indicate that some movement to rural areas has occurred. The real extent
of urban to rural redistribution of population as a result of the crisis will
become clearer when the year 2000 census results are published.
CHARACTERISTICS OF MIGRATION BETWEEN
URBAN AND RURAL AREAS
Notwithstanding the substantial amount of survey evidence of migrants
returning to their village of origin, it is clear that its incidence varies from
place to place. One area where this was significant was among former
construction workers in cities like Jakarta. Most of these workers were
not permanent urban residents of Jakarta in any case, and with the drying
up of construction activity many have returned home. In pre-crisis times
in the mornings one could see day labourers lining the streets at several
locations waiting to be picked up by a mandor (labour organiser) to work
on construction sites. These streets were empty in early 1999.
A study in Indramayu (West Java), in a village that had previously
sent out large numbers of construction workers (Romdiati, Handayani
and Rahayu 1998), found that the crisis had a significant impact. The
village had provided 90% of the labour for some construction companies
in Bekasi, but with the onset of the crisis all had to return to the village,
with the result that 580 (320 men and 260 women) of the total village
population aged 10 and above (3,162 persons) were unemployed. The
impact of their return to the village was exacerbated by the fact that the
village had suffered crop losses as a result of El Niño. Many in the village
went to Saudi Arabia to work as a strategy for dealing with the crisis.
Rather than permanently returning to their villages of origin, many
urban dwellers who are first generation migrants are instead circulating
between their urban homes and their rural birthplaces, and obtaining
what work they can in both locations. This represents an interesting
reversal of the pre-crisis situation. In the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s a pattern
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was observed whereby many rural-based families in Java had at least
one family member who, while domiciled in the village, regularly moved
on a temporary basis to Jakarta to work, often in the informal sector, and
in construction (Hugo 1978; Mantra 1981; Spaan 1999). This diversified
the family’s portfolio of income sources and thus reduced the risk of
income loss. While many moved permanently to the city, many others
kept their families in the village and circulated between city and village
as a response to the shortage of income opportunities in the latter. In the
Seven Kabupaten Study of migration effects mentioned above, this type
of circular movement was the most common form of migration identified.
To some extent, what appears to be happening now is the reverse:
urban dwellers who are first generation migrants and have lost their
formal sector jobs, or are finding it difficult to make ends meet from their
informal sector employment, are now circulating from their urban bases
back to their villages to obtain what work they can there. This is especially
the case in times of peak labour demand such as harvesting. However,
they still also keep their urban informal sector jobs. This pattern is reflected
in the earlier comparison of 1997 and 1998 Sakernas data, which indicated
that the number of urban-based employees in agriculture had increased.
It reflects only the tip of this ‘iceberg’, since it captures only those who
have gone back to the village to work in the period before the survey. In
fact, it is clear that there is much ‘toing and froing’ between city and
village. Hence, some urban-based informal sector workers in the 1990s
are employing a survival strategy similar to that used by rural-based
workers in the 1970s and 1980s.
The study of seven kabupaten undertaken in 1998 included interviews
with 1,662 migrant households containing 7,736 adults, of whom 792
(10.2%) were return migrants; 848 (11.0%) were recently arrived migrants;
1,053 (13.6%) were circular migrants (boro); and 5,043 (65.2%) were nonmigrants. The migrants were asked whether the crisis had influenced
their movement into the village. Table 8 shows that this was so for a
substantial proportion of movement into the village, particularly in the
case of return migrants, almost half of whom had been influenced in
their return by the crisis. The low proportion of recent in-migrants whose
migration was a response to the crisis is understandable, since many
would be marriage migrants moving to join their new spouse’s family—
a long established pattern of migration. However, this category also
includes many people who gave as their reason for moving to the village
‘coming along with family’, and these would include dependants of crisisinfluenced migrants in both the recent migrant and the return migrant
category (i.e. they would be the destination-born offspring of the latter
group).
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The Impact of the Crisis on Internal Population Movement in Indonesia
131
TABLE 8 Seven Kabupaten Study: Population of In-migrants Returning Due to
the Crisis and Circular Migrants Who Had Stopped Migrating
in Response to the Crisis
Migration Response
Due to Crisis
Type of Migrant
Return migrants
Recently arrived migrants
Circular migrants
No.
No.
%
792
848
1,053
354
131
48
44.7
15.4
4.6
Source: Gantjang et al. (1999).
Less than 5% of the circular migrants indicated that the crisis had
influenced them in stopping their migration. Indeed, field evidence
suggests there is a great deal of movement between rural areas as people
take advantage of job opportunities across a wide area. Some 48.5% of
those returnees giving the crisis as their reason for return were heads of
household, so it is clear that many of their accompanying dependants
gave other reasons for returning to the village.
It was notable that circular migration was most evident in the two
study areas in West Java and Central Java, nearest to Jakarta. These are
the provinces in which this pattern of movement is best established (Hugo
1978). Indeed, in these two areas 22% of all adults in the surveyed
households were circular migrants, working mainly in Jakarta’s industrial
and construction sectors. Return migrants are especially numerous in
the East Java and Lombok villages, where returns made up 17% and 21%,
respectively, of the people interviewed. This reflects the significance in
these two areas of migrants returning from overseas destinations
(especially Malaysia and the Middle East). The two main Outer Island
study areas of Bone and Banjar had large proportions of villagers who
were recent migrants, reflecting the fact that, in many Outer Island areas
like Bone, the crisis years have been boom years owing to healthy prices
of estate and cash crops such as cocoa, cloves and sugar cane. This
prosperity has attracted workers from outside. It was found that in three
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study areas (Indramayu, North Lampung and Wonogiri) the bulk of
migrants came from Jakarta and West Java, while in the East Java villages
two-thirds came from overseas, and in the other villages the majority of
migrants came from surrounding areas.
In all cases the migration is selective of males (especially in the case
of circular migrants) and of the young adult age groups, the more
educated and the married populations. Young male adults who are not
heads of households are prominent among circular migrants, reflecting
the fact that in many cases circular migration is a survival strategy for
families, especially in urban areas, whereby they send out a family
member to supplement the family’s income from off-farm sources. It is
apparent that the circular migration is predominantly for work, with
virtually all circular migrants having worked in the week before the
survey. Among the other migrants, more than half had worked during
the last week and 7.8% were looking for work, indicating a significant
degree of unemployment among the incoming migrants. The circular
migrants are clearly involved mainly in informal sector activities at their
destination, and less than one-fifth work in agriculture. Many work in
the unskilled labourer, construction worker category as day labourers.
Among the other migrants, farming is more important, accounting for
about one-third of workers; an even larger proportion are in the unskilled
labour category, indicating that many returnees are willing to work at a
wide range of unskilled agricultural and non-agricultural activities at a
range of localities. It is notable too that about one-fifth of the in-migrants
are unpaid family workers. This may indicate that many of the migrants
are being absorbed on the family farm upon return to the village.
The significance of landlessness in rural Indonesia is evident: more
than half of the households in the sample did not own any agricultural
land. Despite the recent arrival of many returned and recent migrants,
one-third owned land in the village, suggesting that households probably
often retained land in their village of origin after moving to the city. More
than one-half of circular migrants owned land in villages.
Among return and recent migrants, 69.2% were employed before
migration, but only 54.1% were working after migration. Some 3.6% were
looking for work in the destination area, but 7.9% were doing so in the
place of origin. The difference in the proportion who were working before
and after migration was greater for women (42.7% before and 29.4% after)
than for men (86% before and 69.9% after). This may reflect a pattern
found in interviews with urban-based workers, in which several had
adjusted to the crisis by sending family members back to the village where
costs are lower and savings can be made on urban rent.
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The Impact of the Crisis on Internal Population Movement in Indonesia
133
The movements into the survey villages were accompanied by
significant shifts in the economic sectors in which migrants worked. The
largest number of migrants were involved in construction before
migration (131 persons), but after migration only 21.4% of this group
remained in this occupation. The second largest group were in services
before migration (122 persons), and 78.7% were still in this occupation
after migrating to the village. Among those involved in manufacturing
before migration, some 44.3% retained this occupation, while a similar
proportion retained agricultural occupations. The number working in
agriculture increased from 107 before migration to 191 afterwards. In
terms of employment status, the proportion of waged employees declined
from 78% before migration to 40% after movement. On the other hand,
proportions self-employed as family members increased from 21% to 58%
among migrants moving because of the crisis. There is clearly a pattern
of movement from the formal to the informal sector among these
migrants.
Urip (1998) has analysed the results of the 100 village study. In this
study return migrants are defined as people who had ever lived outside
the village for more than a month. This applied to 10.7% of all persons
aged over 10 in the study area, or 4,170 persons, and almost a quarter of
return migrants had returned in the year before the study. Hence urban–
rural return migration is a process that clearly predates the crisis. Studies
of migration in rural Java have long shown that many rural–urban
migrants return to their village of origin upon retiring from urban jobs
(Hugo 1978). It is interesting to see that males only slightly outnumber
females among the in-migrants, and that a third come from urban areas
into the villages.
Urip’s analysis of reasons given by migrants for their return (1998) is
hampered by the fact that 31.4% of those returning in the last year, and
19.2% of others, gave reasons that were coded as ‘other’. This masks the
impact of the crisis on return migration. A large proportion of the
remainder (39.8% of recent arrivals and 56% of the others) moved to follow
other family members. Among the returnees in the last year, 66% were in
the workforce (61.3% employed and 5.6% looking for work), and almost
90% were aged between 20 and 54.
The Indonesian Family Life Survey involved interviews in 1993, 1997
and 1998. It found that some 17% of the original sample had moved
between the 1993 and 1997 interviews, and that a further 6% had moved
in the year before the 1998 survey, indicating that almost a quarter had
moved over the five-year period (Thomas, Frankenberg, Beegle and Teruel
1999). Since less than a year separated the 1997 and 1998 interviews, there
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Graeme Hugo
appears to have been an increase in the rate of out-migration during the
crisis period. However, many households’ initial response to the crisis
would not have involved migration, but other strategies such as seeking
additional work, placing more family members in work, selling assets,
and requesting assistance from formal and informal sources. It would
also often have involved some form of non-permanent movement. In
this case, the family remains in the original location, but individual family
members (most often the head) move temporarily to a place where it is
believed they can get work; in the case of urban residents this may be
back to the village of origin. Such mobility is unlikely to be detected in
traditional questionnaires unless a specific question is asked about circular
migration. When such a question is asked (e.g. in the Seven Kabupaten
Study) a high incidence of circular migration is recorded.
In summary, it would seem that there has been some return of former
urban dwellers to rural areas in Indonesia, especially in Java. This
movement includes two groups that are larger than those permanently
relocating from urban to rural areas:
• workers who were previously circulating temporarily to urban areas,
especially those moving to work in construction and constructionrelated industries; and
• residents of urban areas working in the informal sector (including
people who had been displaced from the formal sector) who circulate
between city and village to take advantage of limited job opportunities
in both sectors and maximise their incomes.
MIGRATION BETWEEN JAVA AND THE OUTER ISLANDS
A number of factors suggest that the impact of the crisis is less severe
outside than within Java. First, the sectors hardest hit in unemployment
terms (construction, manufacturing and low level private sector white
collar jobs) are under-represented outside of Java. Second, the exportoriented resource-based activities (oil, palm oil, forestry, mining), which
are likely to be least affected by the crisis, are over-represented outside
of Java. Finally, there may be more possibilities for expansion of
agriculture in the Outer Islands than there are in Java, and this will help
to absorb urban workers returning. This should not, of course, be taken
to mean that there is no impact, and no need for policy and program
intervention, outside of Java. For example, Silvey (1998 and forthcoming)
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The Impact of the Crisis on Internal Population Movement in Indonesia
135
TABLE 9 Population
ISSN: 0007-4918 (Print) 1472-7234 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cbie20
The Impact of the Crisis on Internal Population
Movement in Indonesia
Graeme Hugo
To cite this article: Graeme Hugo (2000) The Impact of the Crisis on Internal Population
Movement in Indonesia, Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, 36:2, 115-138, DOI:
10.1080/00074910012331338913
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00074910012331338913
Published online: 18 Aug 2006.
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Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies
Vol 36 No 2, August 2000, pp. 115–38
THE IMPACT OF THE CRISIS ON INTERNAL
POPULATION MOVEMENT IN INDONESIA
Graeme Hugo
University of Adelaide
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.
INTRODUCTION
The last two decades in Indonesia have seen a substantial increase in
population mobility. Increasingly Indonesians have adapted to shifts in
the distribution of job opportunities either by adopting temporary
mobility strategies or by moving more or less permanently. They have
ranged over an increasingly wide area in their search for job opportunities,
so that movement within the country (Hugo 1997) and outside it (Hugo
1995) to seek work has become more commonplace. It is not surprising,
then, that one of the ways Indonesians have adapted to the effects of the
economic crisis since 1997 is through moving, on a temporary or, to a
lesser extent, permanent basis, away from areas where these effects have
been severe and into areas where the crisis has had a lesser impact or a
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positive one. The present paper focuses on the effects of the crisis on
internal migration; its influence on international migration is discussed
in a companion paper (Hugo 1999a).
There were significant problems in measuring internal population
mobility in Indonesia even in pre-crisis times (Hugo 1982), but there is
even less information available about the post-crisis situation, because
no census or other major data collection involving migration has been
carried out. The major sources employed here to investigate changes in
internal mobility are:
• a 1998 study of 42 villages in 7 kabupaten covering 1,662 migrant
households (Gantjang et al. 1999) initiated by the United Nations
Development Programme;
• the first round of a central bureau of statistics (BPS) 100 village study
reported on elsewhere in this paper (Urip 1998);
• a number of case studies of the impact of the crisis in villages (e.g.
Breman 1998, Romdiati et al. 1998);
• the Indonesian Family Life Survey (IFLS) undertaken by the
University of Indonesia, the Rand Corporation and the University of
California, Los Angeles; this involved a baseline survey of 7,000
households in 13 provinces in 1993, and two follow-ups in August
1997 – February 1998 and August–December 1998 (Frankenberg,
Thomas and Beegle 1999; Frankenberg, Beegle, Thomas and Suriastini
1999);
• interviews with key respondents, field visits to villages affected by
the crisis in Java and discussions with government officials and
international agencies with field experience of the effects of the crisis.
One of the most distinctive features of Indonesia’s krismon (monetary
crisis) is the ‘patchy’ nature of its impact. A great deal of debate about
the effect of the crisis has been influenced by the fact that parts of
Indonesia appear to have been little affected by it. In particular, areas of
the Outer Islands dependent upon cash crops or resource extraction
activities have been less subject than Java to the decline in domestic
demand, and continue to export to world markets. Similarly, agricultural
landowners in Java, especially those who did not suffer from El Niñoinduced droughts in 1997, may not have had their incomes reduced by
the crisis.
However, among others the impact of the crisis has been heavy. Some
argue that it is predominantly an urban crisis, since the collapse of demand
and of the financial system has produced job losses mainly in urban areas.
The urban and rural economies and labour markets are closely linked,
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The Impact of the Crisis on Internal Population Movement in Indonesia
117
however. Before the crisis, more than a quarter of rural householders in
Java were dependent at least in part on income earned in urban areas by
circulating family members, or on remittances from urban-based relatives.
This reliance on urban-origin funds was heaviest among landless rural
households and those with very small landholdings. Accordingly, a crisis
influencing urban-based employment will have a substantial impact in
rural Java, and it is clear that the crisis has hit many parts of rural Java in
a substantial way.
The last three decades have seen a massive increase in population
mobility. Internal migration data collected in censuses capture only a
part of this mobility, since they do not detect movement within Indonesia’s
provinces, and detect only long-term and permanent movement (Hugo
1982). The proportion of Indonesian males who had ever lived in another
province increased from 6.3 to 11.2% between 1971 and 1995 and that for
females from 5.1 to 10.0% (Hugo 1999b). The literature on internal
migration in Indonesia in the pre-crisis period is unanimous in stressing
the significance of employment trends in shaping population movement
patterns (e.g. Spaan 1999; Hugo 1978; Mantra 1981). Hence, since one of
the most distinctive features of the financial crisis in Indonesia is its patchy
impact, it is likely that a key response to regional and local losses of
employment will be substantial movements of people away from areas
that are hard hit to areas where there is some opportunity to gain
employment on a permanent or temporary basis.
In the present paper the limited information available is analysed to
investigate the extent to which internal migration is being employed as a
strategy to cope with the effects of the crisis. We begin by summarising
some of the employment effects of the crisis that have impinged upon
population movement.
EMPLOYMENT EFFECTS OF THE CRISIS
One of the major characteristics of the crisis is that its impact varies greatly
between areas and between groups. These variations have been well
documented in a number of studies (e.g. Poppele, Sumarto and Pritchett
1999). Several have indicated that the effects of the crisis are especially
severe in urban areas, and in particular those that have seen substantial
retrenchments as a result of capital flight and the cutback of factory output,
cessation of construction activity, and reduction of consumer demand
(Poppele, Sumarto and Pritchett 1999; Thomas, Frankenberg, Beegle and
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Graeme Hugo
Teruel 1999; Sumarto, Wetterberg and Pritchett 1999; Silvey 1998).
However, the crisis has also impacted upon rural areas for a number of
reasons.
First, a high proportion of rural-based households have over several
decades relied for a significant part of their income on remittances from
urban-based relatives or on off-farm work carried out by family members,
often in rural areas. Hence, the effect of loss of jobs and loss of purchasing
power in urban areas will immediately flow through to the rural sector,
directly through a fall in remittances to households, and indirectly through
the consequent reduction in spending in rural areas.
Second, it is true that to some extent land-rich households have been
protected from the effects of the crisis through the increase in food prices
and through buoyant markets for cash crops such as cocoa and cloves.
However, land-rich families make up a minority of the population
working in rural areas. The 1995 Intercensal Population Survey (Supas)
indicates that before the crisis, 28% of Indonesia’s rural households were
landless (53% in West Java!), and the 1993 Agricultural Census showed a
further 5% owned less than 0.1 ha of land (Ahmed 1999). In West Java,
the largest province by population, 64% of rural households are landless
or land poor. Hence, a substantial part of the nation’s rural population
TABLE 1 Employment of Persons Aged 15 Years and Over by Sector, 1997–98
1997
Sector
1998
‘000
%
Agriculture
Quarrying & mining
Manufacturing
Utilities
Construction
Trade
Transport
Finance
Services
34,790
875
11,009
233
4,185
16,953
4,125
657
12,575
Total
85,402
Source: BPS, Sakernas, 1997 and 1998.
Change
‘000
%
%
40.7
1.0
12.9
0.3
4.9
19.8
4.8
0.8
14.7
39,415
675
9,934
148
3,522
16,814
4,154
618
12,394
45.0
0.8
11.3
0.2
4.0
19.2
4.8
0.7
14.1
+13.3
–2.9
–9.8
–36.6
–15.8
–0.8
+0.7
–5.9
–1.4
100.0
87,674
100.0
+2.7
y [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji], [UNIVERSITAS MARITIM RAJA ALI HAJI TANJUNGPINANG, KEPULAUAN RIAU] at 22:06 19
The Impact of the Crisis on Internal Population Movement in Indonesia
119
cannot take advantage of higher prices for agricultural products and
indeed is disadvantaged by higher food prices and increased competition
for work in the village.
Third, the El Niño drought in 1997–98 affected many rural areas, and
it is not clear that all areas and households affected have fully recovered
from this.
Accordingly, it is clear that the effect of the crisis has been felt in both
rural and urban areas. Ahmed (1999: 12–13) has assembled evidence to
support the contention that overall urban–rural differences in the impact
of the crisis are not great, while Islam (1999) shows that crisis effects vary
considerably in the Outer Islands.
Agriculture has absorbed a substantial proportion of workers
displaced by the crisis, and on the surface this would suggest that there
has been a redistribution of workers from urban to rural areas. Table 1
compares the results of the 1997 and 1998 National Labour Force Surveys
(Sakernas) and indicates that while the overall number of Indonesians
employed increased by 2.7% over this period, there was a decline in the
number working in all industries except agriculture and transport, with
only a minor increase in the latter.
With agriculture absorbing the bulk of labour displaced from other
sectors, as well as new entrants to the labour force, we see a significant
reversal of the pre-crisis pattern in which a falling share of the workforce
was employed in agriculture. Table 2 shows that the proportion of male
workers in agriculture fell from 74.2% in 1961 to 40.1% in 1997, but rose
TABLE 2 Proportion of Workforce Employed in Agriculture, 1961–98
%
1961 Census
1971 Census
1980 Census
1990 Census
1995 Supas
1997 Sakernas
1998 Sakernas
Number (‘000)
Males
Females
Males
Females
74.2
66.4
57.2
50.5
43.3
40.1
44.3
71.2
64.7
54.0
49.2
43.4
41.8
46.0
17,649
17,391
19,961
23,311
21,934
21,248
23,871
6,331
8,429
9,081
12,690
12,079
13,542
15,544
y [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji], [UNIVERSITAS MARITIM RAJA ALI HAJI TANJUNGPINANG, KEPULAUAN RIAU] at 22:06 19
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Graeme Hugo
during the crisis to 44.3%. In absolute terms, the number of males
employed in agriculture declined to 21.3 million in 1997 from 23.3 million
in 1990, but increased to 23.9 million in 1998.
Agriculture was the main absorber of labour until recent times. Geertz
(1963) coined the term ‘agricultural involution’ for the distinctive
characteristic of sawah (wet rice) agriculture in Java, which allowed
population increases to be absorbed because:
• increased labour resulted in increased productivity of sawah through
activities such as transplanting, micro control of irrigation and
weeding; and
• there was an associated culture of ‘shared poverty’ whereby the
systems used in sawah were open to all to participate in and were
highly labour intensive.
With increased commercialisation of agriculture the latter aspect
began to break down, and a large share of the workforce came to be
involved in non-agricultural activity. The early 1990s saw the absolute
decline in numbers employed in agriculture already noted. The crisis
has seen a return to exploitation of this involutionary/absorptive capacity
of agriculture, but the question remains whether, given the new
commercialised ways in which it is organised, agriculture can absorb
large numbers of workers on a permanent basis if the crisis continues
over a long period.
It is important to examine where most workers have been absorbed in
agriculture during the crisis years. Table 3 shows the increase in
agricultural workers by province between 1997 and 1998. Virtually all
provinces recorded a rise in their agricultural workforce over the
1997–98 period, with West Nusa Tenggara a minor exception. There were
significant increases in the agricultural workforce of Sumatra (1.1 million
workers) and South Sulawesi (235,000). In Java and Lampung combined,
females outnumber males among the new entrants to the agricultural
workforce (52.1%). This suggests a phenomenon whereby more family
members are being involved in work outside of the home under pressure
of the crisis. West and East Java (each with about 1 million extra
agricultural workers) alone accounted for 44.5% of the new agricultural
jobs created, but there was also substantial expansion in the numbers
employed in agriculture in several other provinces of Java and Sumatra.
Riau has long been a significant magnet for internal migrants, and the
expansion of the agricultural workforce in this province may be associated
with in-migration from elsewhere, especially Java.
y [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji], [UNIVERSITAS MARITIM RAJA ALI HAJI TANJUNGPINANG, KEPULAUAN RIAU] at 22:06 19
The Impact of the Crisis on Internal Population Movement in Indonesia
121
TABLE 3 Change in Agricultural Employment by Province, 1997–98
(‘000)
Males
Females
Total
Province
1997
1998
Increase
1997
1998
Aceh
North Sumatra
West Sumatra
Riau
Jambi
South Sumatra
Bengkulu
Lampung
Sumatra
546
1,211
436
483
344
1,024
224
1,092
580
1,368
498
609
405
1,150
293
1,239
+34
+157
+62
+126
+61
+126
+69
+147
+782
390
1,102
357
234
206
706
174
589
403
1,052
344
271
251
782
213
748
+13
–50
–13
+37
+45
+74
+39
+169
+314
+47
+107
+49
+163
+106
+200
+108
+316
+1,096
Jakarta
West Java
Central Java
Yogyakarta
East Java
Java
6
2,598
3,347
277
4,097
29
3,076
3,652
259
4,631
+23
+478
+305
–18
+534
+1,322
1
1,403
2,132
215
2,588
2
1,928
2,462
240
3,138
+1
+525
+330
+25
+550
+1,431
+24
+1,003
+635
+7
+1,084
+2,753
Bali
West Nusa Tenggara
East Nusa Tenggara
East Timor
Bali–Nusa Tenggara
298
452
637
152
316
454
687
164
+18
+2
+50
+12
+82
247
362
478
100
265
338
483
107
+18
–24
+5
+7
+6
+36
–22
+55
+19
+88
West Kalimantan
Central Kalimantan
South Kalimantan
East Kalimantan
Kalimantan
573
241
342
215
591
236
383
236
+18
–5
+41
+21
+75
441
133
275
85
431
167
314
110
–10
+34
+39
+25
+88
+8
+29
+80
+46
+163
North Sulawesi
Central Sulawesi
South Sulawesi
Southeast Sulawesi
Sulawesi
407
349
1,012
252
448
367
1,146
257
+41
+18
+134
+5
+198
82
176
431
152
99
175
532
168
+17
–1
+101
+16
+133
+58
+17
+235
+21
+331
285
345
364
437
+79
+92
+171
157
312
223
331
+66
+19
+85
+145
+111
+256
+2,057
+4,687
Maluku
Irian
Maluku–Irian
TOTAL
Source: As for table 1.
+2,630
Increase Increase
y [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji], [UNIVERSITAS MARITIM RAJA ALI HAJI TANJUNGPINANG, KEPULAUAN RIAU] at 22:06 19
122
Graeme Hugo
One aspect of the increase in agricultural employment between 1997
and 1998 is that the number of agricultural workers living in urban areas
rose by 45%, while the increase in rural areas was 11%. This meant an
increment of 1.0 million in urban areas and of 3.6 million in rural areas. It
is apparent that temporary movement is involved. On the one hand, in
rural areas the increment includes new entrants to the labour force,
returnees from urban areas and workers displaced from other sectors in
rural areas. Among urban residents employed in agriculture, many in
fact work in agriculture in rural areas through circular migration, while
others farm the many empty lands in and near major urban areas.
Table 4 shows that in urban areas there was a net loss of 90,000 jobs
from the non-agricultural sector between 1997 and 1998. This relatively
small decline reflected the fact that most of the net loss of 1.4 million
displaced by the crisis from the formal sector were able to gain some
employment in the urban informal sector. Geertz (1963) has shown that
the urban informal sector shares many of the involutionary characteristics
of the sawah system.
TABLE 4 Agricultural and Non-agricultural Employment
in Urban and Rural Areas, 1997–98
(‘000)
Agricultural
Non-agricultural
Total
Urban
1997
1998
% change
2,314
3,355
+45.0
27,040
26,950
–0.3
29,354
30,305
+3.2
Rural
1997
1998
% change
32,476
36,060
+11.0
23,576
21,307
–9.6
56,052
57,367
+2.3
Total
1997
1998
% change
34,790
39,415
13.3
50,616
48,257
–4.7
85,406
87,672
+2.7
Source: As for table 1.
y [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji], [UNIVERSITAS MARITIM RAJA ALI HAJI TANJUNGPINANG, KEPULAUAN RIAU] at 22:06 19
The Impact of the Crisis on Internal Population Movement in Indonesia
123
The decline in non-agricultural employment in the rural sector was
much more substantial, with a net loss of 2.3 million jobs. The crisis greatly
reduced the flow of cash into rural areas, as remittances from urbanbased relatives fell and off-farm work opportunities for village-based
landless people, many of which had been based in urban areas, declined.
As a result, demand for services such as small-scale selling and house
improvement dried up in villages. The resulting loss of non-agricultural
jobs was made up by a net gain of 3.6 million jobs in agriculture in the
rural sector. The agricultural sector absorbed not only displaced workers
from the non-agricultural sector in rural areas, but also new entrants to
the labour force and returnees from urban areas.
The absorptive capacity of the agricultural sector has historically been
substantial, and it would appear that, while some of the rise in numbers
of agricultural workers in the Outer Islands is due to expansion of cash
crops, much of the increase in Java has been involutionary. The question
remains how far agriculture—especially in Java—can reverse the trend
TABLE 5 Changes in Employment by Industry, 1997–98
(‘000)
Males
Sector
Females
1997
(‘000)
1998
(‘000)
Change
%
Agriculture
21,248
Mining
696
Manufacturing 6,103
Utilities
214
Construction
4,037
Trade
8,295
Transport
4,012
Finance
447
Services
7,951
23,871
574
5,482
131
3,386
8,247
4,024
412
7,775
Total
53,902
53,003
Source: As for table 1.
1997
(‘000)
1998
(‘000)
Change
%
+12.3
–17.5
–10.2
–38.8
–16.1
–0.6
+0.3
–7.8
–2.2
13,542
180
4,906
19
148
8,658
113
210
4,624
15,543
101
4,451
17
136
8,570
130
206
4,619
+14.8
–43.9
–9.3
–10.5
–8.1
–1.0
+15.0
–1.9
–0.1
–1.7
32,400
33,773
+4.2
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124
Graeme Hugo
of recent decades towards increasing productivity per worker and
displacement of labour, and restore the former pattern of absorbing the
bulk of the increment in new workers, albeit at a low level of productivity.
Table 5 examines the gender patterns of crisis period employment
changes by sector. It shows that female employment increased faster than
male employment in 1997–98, suggesting that women became more
involved in the workforce outside the home as a response to the crisis.
The bulk of the net increase in female participation was in the agricultural
sector. In considering the migration implications of table 5, it is important
to note the areas where most labour displacement has occurred. There
were major job losses in manufacturing (621,000 males and 455,000
females), construction (650,800 males and 12,400 females) and services
(176,050 males and 4,600 females). It is worth considering further the
losses for men and women in manufacturing and for men in construction.
Table 6 shows that almost half a million jobs in manufacturing
(436,600) were lost in Jakarta–West Java alone. Losses were equally severe
among men and women. Women losing jobs in this sector were mainly
recent migrants from West and Central Java, relatively well educated
and from middle income families in rural areas (Sunaryanto 1998). It is
TABLE 6 Jakarta–West Java: Changes in Employment by Industry, 1997–98
(‘000)
Construction
Manufacturing
1,181
889
–25.1
2,120
1,840
–13.2
55
43
–22.0
1,233
1,076
–12.6
1,236
932
–24.6
3,353
2,916
–13.0
Males
1997
1998
% changea
Females
1997
1998
% changea
Total
1997
1998
% changea
a
Percentage change is calculated for unrounded data.
Source: As for table 1.
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The Impact of the Crisis on Internal Population Movement in Indonesia
125
uncertain what proportion of these women have returned to their villages
and how many have remained in the hope of getting another job, perhaps
receiving support from rural-based families. Certainly, pre-crisis studies
indicated that these women were not attracted to pursuing gainful
occupations in the village; indeed, this prospect was an important factor
pushing this group out (Sunaryanto 1998). In Bekasi, where many of the
manufacturing activities, especially those employing women, were
located, unemployment rose from 6.7 to 13.6% between 1997 and 1998
(Depnaker and BPS 1999: 201). This suggests that there certainly was
some movement of displaced manufacturing workers out of Bekasi, but
that the majority have stayed (the workforce in Bekasi increased from 1.1
million in 1997 to 1.3 million in 1998) and taken up other work or remained
unemployed. The decline in construction employment in Jakarta–West
Java between 1997 and 1998 was even more severe (table 6). Among men
a quarter of such jobs were lost, and this undoubtedly led to significant
return migration from urban areas in the two provinces.
Movement into agriculture was an important strategy adopted in the
face of the net overall loss of more than 2.4 million non-agricultural jobs
between 1997 and 1998. It is clear that population mobility has played a
significant role in this, through people moving permanently or circulating
between urban and rural areas.
TABLE 7 Change in Work Status of Labour Force, 1997–98
Rural
Urban
Total
Change
1997
(‘000)
1998 Change
(‘000)
(%)
1997
(‘000)
1998 Change
(‘000) (%)
(‘000)
Informal sector
Self-employed
Self-employed,
assisted by family/
day labourers
Not paid
41,104
13,103
43,489
13,058
+5.8
–0.3
12,557
6,762
13,852 +10.3 +3,680
7,465 +10.4
+659
14,575
13,426
16,034 +10.0
14,396 +7.2
3,407
2,388
3,656 +7.3 +1,703
2,732 +14.4 +1,214
Formal sector
Employer
Employed
14,948
782
14,165
13,879
804
13,075
Source: As for table 1.
–7.1
+2.7
–7.7
16,797
684
16,112
16,452
722
15,730
–2.2
+5.5
–2.4
–1,413
+59
–1,470
y [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji], [UNIVERSITAS MARITIM RAJA ALI HAJI TANJUNGPINANG, KEPULAUAN RIAU] at 22:06 19
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Graeme Hugo
There is some debate about the extent to which there has been a flow
of workers from the formal into the informal sector during the crisis.
Table 7 shows, using a somewhat unsatisfactory definition of the informal
sector,1 that there was a net gain of 3.7 million informal sector jobs
between 1997 and 1998 (2.4 million in rural areas and 1.3 million in urban
areas) and a net loss of 1.4 million formal sector jobs.
URBAN AND RURAL MIGRATION AND THE CRISIS
It is apparent from the above that there have been substantial shifts in
type of employment as a result of the crisis, the net effects of which are to
some extent apparent in the 1997 and 1998 Sakernas results. These changes
are not easy to document given the lack of detailed data, but there is
evidence of population movement being associated with many of them.
Population mobility levels have increased over the last three decades
(Hugo 1997). Moreover, there is an established history of Indonesians
adopting a range of mobility strategies to adjust to changes in the labour
market (Hugo 1978, 1981); in particular, pressure on limited jobs in rural
Java has led many to move on a temporary or permanent basis to take
advantage of off-farm job opportunities (Hugo 1978; Mantra 1981; Spaan
1999). During the crisis a variety of strategies have been implemented,
including temporary and permanent moves, to adapt to the changed
labour market conditions outlined above.
In the early days of the crisis, much was made of the potential for
displaced workers in the major urban areas of Java to return to their home
areas in the rural hinterland to obtain work and support from their
communities of origin. However, there are several reasons why this option
was not available or not acceptable to a substantial proportion of the
Indonesian urban population.
First, although a significant proportion (38.5%) of Jakarta’s population
(and that of other cities) was in fact born outside the city, many
contemporary residents of urban Indonesia are two or three generations
removed from their rural origins, and simply do not have the option of
returning, since they do not have contacts with the community of origin
of their parents and grandparents. In many cases the village has little to
offer returning migrants. In 1997 in particular, El Niño and the long
drought meant that agricultural production in many villages was well
below that of previous years, such that Indonesia went from being an
exporter of rice in 1996–97 to needing to import 1.7 million tons of rice in
1998 (Asian Migration News, 6/8/98). In many villages of origin of
migrants there has been a growth of dependency upon remittances from
urban-based relatives.
y [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji], [UNIVERSITAS MARITIM RAJA ALI HAJI TANJUNGPINANG, KEPULAUAN RIAU] at 22:06 19
The Impact of the Crisis on Internal Population Movement in Indonesia
127
Much of the thinking that the village can act as a ‘safety net’ for
displaced urban workers is based upon the ideas Geertz (1963) developed
in Agricultural Involution. He argued that greater wage flexibility in rural
areas allows displaced labour to be more readily absorbed than in the
modern urban sector. However, since Geertz did his work, rural Indonesia
(especially rural Java) and sawah have been transformed as a result of the
Green Revolution, the commercialisation of rice production and the
proletarianisation of the rural workforce (i.e. its transformation from
subsistence to wage labour). Adoption of new technologies and
agricultural practices has allowed a reduction in the number of workers
in agriculture, despite a substantial increase in production (i.e. the reverse
of Geertz’s involution concept). Social organisation has been transformed
so that traditional arrangements for harvesting and other agricultural
work have largely been replaced by more commercially-based labour
hiring systems.
Thus, the capacity of sawah to absorb large numbers of returning urban
workers, as posited in the Agricultural Involution thesis, has become
increasingly limited. At the same time, the rapid growth of manufacturing
and other urban employment opportunities has tended to pull people
out of agriculture.
Second, discussions with urban displaced workers suggest that
although their options were limited they preferred to remain in the city
rather than return to their village homes. Many had come to the city
precisely because they did not want to work in agriculture. The education
system tends to orient children away from agriculture, so that those who
gain secondary school qualifications generally do not want to work on
farms. Sunaryanto (1998) reports that young women gaining work in
factories in and around Jakarta gave as a reason for migrating their desire
to get away from having to take up an agricultural job.
Many urban residents have capital assets in the city which make it
difficult for them to pack up and return to the village. Furthermore,
migrants who have become used to urban levels of service provision
may be unwilling to go back to situations where services such as schooling
and health are of a lower standard than those they have been using in
the city.
There can be no doubt that the economic crisis has stimulated a
significant urban to rural return migration flow in Java and elsewhere
(e.g. Silvey 1998). However, it has included only a minority of workers
affected by the crisis in urban areas. In Jakarta the city government had a
policy of encouraging return movement. Operation Justisia (Justice) was
aimed at sending unemployed migrants home (JP, 8/2/98). In early 1998
it was estimated that in addition to the 3.2 million Jakarta people who
y [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji], [UNIVERSITAS MARITIM RAJA ALI HAJI TANJUNGPINANG, KEPULAUAN RIAU] at 22:06 19
128
Graeme Hugo
went back to their village of origin during Idul Fitri (the post-fasting
celebration), an extra 300,000 new migrants would be coming back with
them (JP, 7/2/98). For a short time the government of Jakarta met buses
and sent back migrants who lacked Jakarta identification cards. In January,
627 were rounded up and returned (JP, 7/2/98).
Breman (1998) found that the social networks in the village are not as
strong as assumed by urban-based decision makers, and that many who
go back do not have land or strong links with land owners. He argues
that the safety net has been lost to urban migrants, and that the
government has chosen to accept two convenient notions that his village
work indicates now have little credence: that the safety net of the village
is intact for urban migrants; and that urban centres continue to be
anchored in rural society.
The 1999 Kecamatan Rapid Poverty Assessment survey interviewed
three government officials in each of Indonesia’s 4,025 kecamatan about
migration and its impact. This study (Sumarto, Wetterberg and Pritchett
1999: 18) found that:
• both urban and rural kecamatan officials reported a greater than normal
inflow of males returning because they had lost jobs elsewhere;
• there was a smaller increase in the number of women returning; this
may indicate that often the male household head returns to the village
for work but leaves his family in the city;
• less out-migration was reported than in the previous year.
Other smaller-scale studies also support the finding of increased
return migration. UNSFIR (1999: 65) reports the suggestion that there
are villages where the population has recently expanded by up to onethird because of return migration. The Seven Kabupaten Study (Gantjang
et al. 1999) also points to the significance of return migration, as do
several village studies (e.g. Romdiati, Handayani and Rahayu 1998;
Breman 1998). Clearly much of this return migration is being absorbed
in the agricultural sector. In the Outer Islands, Silvey’s (1998 and
forthcoming) study in Ujung Pandang indicates a substantial flow of men
and women back to their village of origin in response to the crisis.
A report of a seminar on the impact of the crisis on village
development in Java (Sandee 1999: 142) indicated that there were:
… mixed reports on the significance of return migration. In some
villages more than 50 percent of the migrants had returned, while
in the others the majority stayed active in the urban economy.
There were examples of rural wages being adjusted downwards
to accommodate more workers. However, there was also some
y [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji], [UNIVERSITAS MARITIM RAJA ALI HAJI TANJUNGPINANG, KEPULAUAN RIAU] at 22:06 19
The Impact of the Crisis on Internal Population Movement in Indonesia
129
evidence of migrants who failed to integrate and, consequently,
had gone back to the cities. Most contributors stressed, however,
that the majority of migrants remain in the cities, although the
crisis is likely to have had a negative impact on the amount of
their remittances.
In sum, there is no clear picture yet of the extent of permanent
redistribution of population in Java from urban to rural areas. The results
of the 1997 and 1998 Sakernas show that over the 1997–98 period the
urban population aged 15+ grew by 51.3%, while the rural population
grew by only 0.9%, but several field studies (e.g. Gantjang et al. 1999)
indicate that some movement to rural areas has occurred. The real extent
of urban to rural redistribution of population as a result of the crisis will
become clearer when the year 2000 census results are published.
CHARACTERISTICS OF MIGRATION BETWEEN
URBAN AND RURAL AREAS
Notwithstanding the substantial amount of survey evidence of migrants
returning to their village of origin, it is clear that its incidence varies from
place to place. One area where this was significant was among former
construction workers in cities like Jakarta. Most of these workers were
not permanent urban residents of Jakarta in any case, and with the drying
up of construction activity many have returned home. In pre-crisis times
in the mornings one could see day labourers lining the streets at several
locations waiting to be picked up by a mandor (labour organiser) to work
on construction sites. These streets were empty in early 1999.
A study in Indramayu (West Java), in a village that had previously
sent out large numbers of construction workers (Romdiati, Handayani
and Rahayu 1998), found that the crisis had a significant impact. The
village had provided 90% of the labour for some construction companies
in Bekasi, but with the onset of the crisis all had to return to the village,
with the result that 580 (320 men and 260 women) of the total village
population aged 10 and above (3,162 persons) were unemployed. The
impact of their return to the village was exacerbated by the fact that the
village had suffered crop losses as a result of El Niño. Many in the village
went to Saudi Arabia to work as a strategy for dealing with the crisis.
Rather than permanently returning to their villages of origin, many
urban dwellers who are first generation migrants are instead circulating
between their urban homes and their rural birthplaces, and obtaining
what work they can in both locations. This represents an interesting
reversal of the pre-crisis situation. In the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s a pattern
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was observed whereby many rural-based families in Java had at least
one family member who, while domiciled in the village, regularly moved
on a temporary basis to Jakarta to work, often in the informal sector, and
in construction (Hugo 1978; Mantra 1981; Spaan 1999). This diversified
the family’s portfolio of income sources and thus reduced the risk of
income loss. While many moved permanently to the city, many others
kept their families in the village and circulated between city and village
as a response to the shortage of income opportunities in the latter. In the
Seven Kabupaten Study of migration effects mentioned above, this type
of circular movement was the most common form of migration identified.
To some extent, what appears to be happening now is the reverse:
urban dwellers who are first generation migrants and have lost their
formal sector jobs, or are finding it difficult to make ends meet from their
informal sector employment, are now circulating from their urban bases
back to their villages to obtain what work they can there. This is especially
the case in times of peak labour demand such as harvesting. However,
they still also keep their urban informal sector jobs. This pattern is reflected
in the earlier comparison of 1997 and 1998 Sakernas data, which indicated
that the number of urban-based employees in agriculture had increased.
It reflects only the tip of this ‘iceberg’, since it captures only those who
have gone back to the village to work in the period before the survey. In
fact, it is clear that there is much ‘toing and froing’ between city and
village. Hence, some urban-based informal sector workers in the 1990s
are employing a survival strategy similar to that used by rural-based
workers in the 1970s and 1980s.
The study of seven kabupaten undertaken in 1998 included interviews
with 1,662 migrant households containing 7,736 adults, of whom 792
(10.2%) were return migrants; 848 (11.0%) were recently arrived migrants;
1,053 (13.6%) were circular migrants (boro); and 5,043 (65.2%) were nonmigrants. The migrants were asked whether the crisis had influenced
their movement into the village. Table 8 shows that this was so for a
substantial proportion of movement into the village, particularly in the
case of return migrants, almost half of whom had been influenced in
their return by the crisis. The low proportion of recent in-migrants whose
migration was a response to the crisis is understandable, since many
would be marriage migrants moving to join their new spouse’s family—
a long established pattern of migration. However, this category also
includes many people who gave as their reason for moving to the village
‘coming along with family’, and these would include dependants of crisisinfluenced migrants in both the recent migrant and the return migrant
category (i.e. they would be the destination-born offspring of the latter
group).
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131
TABLE 8 Seven Kabupaten Study: Population of In-migrants Returning Due to
the Crisis and Circular Migrants Who Had Stopped Migrating
in Response to the Crisis
Migration Response
Due to Crisis
Type of Migrant
Return migrants
Recently arrived migrants
Circular migrants
No.
No.
%
792
848
1,053
354
131
48
44.7
15.4
4.6
Source: Gantjang et al. (1999).
Less than 5% of the circular migrants indicated that the crisis had
influenced them in stopping their migration. Indeed, field evidence
suggests there is a great deal of movement between rural areas as people
take advantage of job opportunities across a wide area. Some 48.5% of
those returnees giving the crisis as their reason for return were heads of
household, so it is clear that many of their accompanying dependants
gave other reasons for returning to the village.
It was notable that circular migration was most evident in the two
study areas in West Java and Central Java, nearest to Jakarta. These are
the provinces in which this pattern of movement is best established (Hugo
1978). Indeed, in these two areas 22% of all adults in the surveyed
households were circular migrants, working mainly in Jakarta’s industrial
and construction sectors. Return migrants are especially numerous in
the East Java and Lombok villages, where returns made up 17% and 21%,
respectively, of the people interviewed. This reflects the significance in
these two areas of migrants returning from overseas destinations
(especially Malaysia and the Middle East). The two main Outer Island
study areas of Bone and Banjar had large proportions of villagers who
were recent migrants, reflecting the fact that, in many Outer Island areas
like Bone, the crisis years have been boom years owing to healthy prices
of estate and cash crops such as cocoa, cloves and sugar cane. This
prosperity has attracted workers from outside. It was found that in three
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study areas (Indramayu, North Lampung and Wonogiri) the bulk of
migrants came from Jakarta and West Java, while in the East Java villages
two-thirds came from overseas, and in the other villages the majority of
migrants came from surrounding areas.
In all cases the migration is selective of males (especially in the case
of circular migrants) and of the young adult age groups, the more
educated and the married populations. Young male adults who are not
heads of households are prominent among circular migrants, reflecting
the fact that in many cases circular migration is a survival strategy for
families, especially in urban areas, whereby they send out a family
member to supplement the family’s income from off-farm sources. It is
apparent that the circular migration is predominantly for work, with
virtually all circular migrants having worked in the week before the
survey. Among the other migrants, more than half had worked during
the last week and 7.8% were looking for work, indicating a significant
degree of unemployment among the incoming migrants. The circular
migrants are clearly involved mainly in informal sector activities at their
destination, and less than one-fifth work in agriculture. Many work in
the unskilled labourer, construction worker category as day labourers.
Among the other migrants, farming is more important, accounting for
about one-third of workers; an even larger proportion are in the unskilled
labour category, indicating that many returnees are willing to work at a
wide range of unskilled agricultural and non-agricultural activities at a
range of localities. It is notable too that about one-fifth of the in-migrants
are unpaid family workers. This may indicate that many of the migrants
are being absorbed on the family farm upon return to the village.
The significance of landlessness in rural Indonesia is evident: more
than half of the households in the sample did not own any agricultural
land. Despite the recent arrival of many returned and recent migrants,
one-third owned land in the village, suggesting that households probably
often retained land in their village of origin after moving to the city. More
than one-half of circular migrants owned land in villages.
Among return and recent migrants, 69.2% were employed before
migration, but only 54.1% were working after migration. Some 3.6% were
looking for work in the destination area, but 7.9% were doing so in the
place of origin. The difference in the proportion who were working before
and after migration was greater for women (42.7% before and 29.4% after)
than for men (86% before and 69.9% after). This may reflect a pattern
found in interviews with urban-based workers, in which several had
adjusted to the crisis by sending family members back to the village where
costs are lower and savings can be made on urban rent.
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The movements into the survey villages were accompanied by
significant shifts in the economic sectors in which migrants worked. The
largest number of migrants were involved in construction before
migration (131 persons), but after migration only 21.4% of this group
remained in this occupation. The second largest group were in services
before migration (122 persons), and 78.7% were still in this occupation
after migrating to the village. Among those involved in manufacturing
before migration, some 44.3% retained this occupation, while a similar
proportion retained agricultural occupations. The number working in
agriculture increased from 107 before migration to 191 afterwards. In
terms of employment status, the proportion of waged employees declined
from 78% before migration to 40% after movement. On the other hand,
proportions self-employed as family members increased from 21% to 58%
among migrants moving because of the crisis. There is clearly a pattern
of movement from the formal to the informal sector among these
migrants.
Urip (1998) has analysed the results of the 100 village study. In this
study return migrants are defined as people who had ever lived outside
the village for more than a month. This applied to 10.7% of all persons
aged over 10 in the study area, or 4,170 persons, and almost a quarter of
return migrants had returned in the year before the study. Hence urban–
rural return migration is a process that clearly predates the crisis. Studies
of migration in rural Java have long shown that many rural–urban
migrants return to their village of origin upon retiring from urban jobs
(Hugo 1978). It is interesting to see that males only slightly outnumber
females among the in-migrants, and that a third come from urban areas
into the villages.
Urip’s analysis of reasons given by migrants for their return (1998) is
hampered by the fact that 31.4% of those returning in the last year, and
19.2% of others, gave reasons that were coded as ‘other’. This masks the
impact of the crisis on return migration. A large proportion of the
remainder (39.8% of recent arrivals and 56% of the others) moved to follow
other family members. Among the returnees in the last year, 66% were in
the workforce (61.3% employed and 5.6% looking for work), and almost
90% were aged between 20 and 54.
The Indonesian Family Life Survey involved interviews in 1993, 1997
and 1998. It found that some 17% of the original sample had moved
between the 1993 and 1997 interviews, and that a further 6% had moved
in the year before the 1998 survey, indicating that almost a quarter had
moved over the five-year period (Thomas, Frankenberg, Beegle and Teruel
1999). Since less than a year separated the 1997 and 1998 interviews, there
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appears to have been an increase in the rate of out-migration during the
crisis period. However, many households’ initial response to the crisis
would not have involved migration, but other strategies such as seeking
additional work, placing more family members in work, selling assets,
and requesting assistance from formal and informal sources. It would
also often have involved some form of non-permanent movement. In
this case, the family remains in the original location, but individual family
members (most often the head) move temporarily to a place where it is
believed they can get work; in the case of urban residents this may be
back to the village of origin. Such mobility is unlikely to be detected in
traditional questionnaires unless a specific question is asked about circular
migration. When such a question is asked (e.g. in the Seven Kabupaten
Study) a high incidence of circular migration is recorded.
In summary, it would seem that there has been some return of former
urban dwellers to rural areas in Indonesia, especially in Java. This
movement includes two groups that are larger than those permanently
relocating from urban to rural areas:
• workers who were previously circulating temporarily to urban areas,
especially those moving to work in construction and constructionrelated industries; and
• residents of urban areas working in the informal sector (including
people who had been displaced from the formal sector) who circulate
between city and village to take advantage of limited job opportunities
in both sectors and maximise their incomes.
MIGRATION BETWEEN JAVA AND THE OUTER ISLANDS
A number of factors suggest that the impact of the crisis is less severe
outside than within Java. First, the sectors hardest hit in unemployment
terms (construction, manufacturing and low level private sector white
collar jobs) are under-represented outside of Java. Second, the exportoriented resource-based activities (oil, palm oil, forestry, mining), which
are likely to be least affected by the crisis, are over-represented outside
of Java. Finally, there may be more possibilities for expansion of
agriculture in the Outer Islands than there are in Java, and this will help
to absorb urban workers returning. This should not, of course, be taken
to mean that there is no impact, and no need for policy and program
intervention, outside of Java. For example, Silvey (1998 and forthcoming)
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TABLE 9 Population