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Indonesia Migration
Although Indonesians--particularly Javanese--are
sometimes
stereotyped as highly immobile, rarely venturing out
beyond the
confines of their village environment, this image may be
due to a
lack of clear data and an extraordinarily complex pattern
of
movement in the population. By the early 1990s,
outmigration had
become as common a response to overcrowded conditions
caused by
rising population as resigned acceptance of
impoverishment. Central
Javanese, in particular, were leaving their home region in
record
numbers. The number of all Javanese leaving the island
permanently
was growing: there was a 73 percent increase in
outmigration from
1971 to 1980. Some 6 percent of the population of the
other islands
was Javanese by 1980. Whereas most Indonesians who moved
from one
region to another did so on their own, some migration was
organized
by the government-sponsored Transmigration Program. From
1969 to
1989, some 730,000 families were relocated by this program
from the
overpopulated islands of Java, Bali, and Madura to less
populated
islands. Nearly half of these migrants went to Sumatra,
particularly its southern provinces. Smaller numbers went
to
Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Maluku, and Irian Jaya. The overall
impact on
population problems in Java and Bali was limited, however,
and
there were increasing problems in finding suitable land on
the
other islands. Land disputes with indigenous inhabitants,
deforestation, and problems of agricultural productivity
and social
infrastructure presented continuing difficulties for this
program.
During this period, Indonesians were also engaging in
what
demographers call "circular migration" and other kinds of
commuting
in greater numbers than ever before. This trend was linked
in part
to the exponential increase in the number of motor
vehicles, from
3 per 1,000 in the 1960s to 26.2 per 1,000 in 1980 to 46.3
per
1,000 in 1990. With the widespread availability of public
bus
transportation among cities and villages, many workers
commuted
fifty kilometers or more daily to work. Other workers
lived away
from their homes for several days at a time in order to
work. The
World Bank estimated that 25 percent of rural households
had at
least one family member working for part of the year in an
urban
area.
Although the implications of this migration on the
social and
economic conditions of the nation remained unclear,
without
question Indonesians of different ethnic backgrounds and
occupations increasingly intermingled. They also found
themselves
in circumstances where they could not rely on kin and
village
networks for social support, and so looked to government
services
for help. Two important areas in which government services
provided
support were education and health care
(see Education;
Health, this ch.).
Data as of November 1992
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