7 - New opportunities and old constraints: Gender equality in the post-Suharto era from an economic perspective

Summary

The advancement of gender equality is a long-term social change and can be reflected in measurable economic indicators. In the Western world, the improvement of women’s status and freedom in society is accompanied by dramatic changes in economic indicators, including an increase in female labour market participation, an increase in female educational attainment, narrowing of the gender wage gap, an increase in age at first marriage, and a decline in fertility rate (Goldin 2006). Similar changes have occurred in the developing world in the past few decades where there was relatively fast economic growth. Education of girls caught up with that of boys by the mid-2010s; labour force participation of women has increased significantly, especially in Latin America and the Caribbean; and the fertility rate has dramatically declined (World Bank 2012). However, there are still persistent large gender gaps in earnings, health and asset ownership (ibid.).

The trajectory of economic gender equality in Indonesia has been consistent with that of the developing world in many aspects. Since independence, Indonesia has made great progress in increasing schooling, reducing the fertility rate and increasing life expectancy of women. Economic liberalisation in the New Order era created fast economic growth and job opportunities for women, especially in export-oriented manufacturing. The end of the New Order, however, has seen a dramatic decline in the importance of export-oriented manufacturing as a growth engine. The new driver of economic growth has mainly been the resources boom. At the same time, the change from an authoritarian and highly centralised regime to a much more democratic and decentralised regime has allowed different social and religious groups and ideologies, including gender ideologies, to surface.

Against this backdrop, how has gender equality evolved from an economic perspective during the post-Suharto era? In this chapter we will use large-scale economic data to construct trends of many of the economic indicators of gender equality. We mainly use a cohort analysis approach to show long-term generational change. We find that employment opportunities for women have significantly improved during the post- Suharto era. Each new cohort of women is more likely to join the labour force, more likely to be employed in the formal sector, and more likely to be managers and professionals in the years following completion of their education. Educational attainment of women has also caught up and surpassed that of men in recent years.