Unit 2: Gender issues in the world of work

Labour market gender issues by country

Indonesia

A Comprehensive Women’s Employment Strategy for Indonesia: Final Report of an ILO/UNDP TSS1 Mission, June 1993, ILO/ROAP, Bangkok.

Introduction

This report is the outcome of a mission fielded by the ILO, with UNDP’s support, to assist the Government of Indonesia to undertake a comprehensive review of the major socioeconomic development and labour market policies and programmes, as well as the macro institutional and legislative structures, directly or indirectly affecting labour force participation and employment. The purpose of the review was to highlight key gender dimensions and to identify strategic interventions for improving women’s working conditions and welfare.

The report is intended to serve as a contribution to REPELITA VI (1994-1999). Within the framework of the country’s Second 25-Year Development Plan, the guidelines for the formulation of REPELITA VI emphasize human resource development, productive employment and gender concerns. In this context, the development and efficient utilisation of female human resource potentials, equality of opportunity and treatment for women workers, and improvement of the quality of employment for women workers in Indonesia are priority issues.

This section briefly summarizes the main ideas and recommendations of the strategy laid out in the report.

A framework for women’s employment in Indonesia: development objectives

The report begins by setting out a framework for women’s employment in Indonesia. The fundamental development objectives in the framework are that:

• employment for women or men is not the ultimate goal of development, but rather a means for improved quality of life and realisation of human potential.

• women’s opportunities for productive and remunerative employment and the conditions of their employment are affected essentially by:
  • whether they can compete on an equal basis with men for entry and upward mobility in the labour market
  • whether women and men compete in the same labour markets or whether the markets are segregated and/or stratified

• discrimination against women can occur at all stages: preparation for entry, recruitment, job allocation, training, initial wages, other benefits, etc. Women’s employment can be confined to certain sectors of the economy, and within those, to low-paid, low-status jobs with little upward mobility or security.

• to improve women’s "employability" interventions are needed both on
  • the supply side¾ enhancing their human resource potentials and enabling their equality of access to opportunities
  • the demand side¾ expanding the labour markets and income earning opportunities open to women and addressing the causes of labour market stratification.

• there has to be concern not just for the quantity but for the quality of employment¾ increased productivity, higher incomes, equal remuneration for equal work, improved working conditions, welfare and protection¾ so that women’s labour force participation actually translates into higher status and quality of life.

Strategic policy approaches

The framework then goes on to lay out the following strategic policy approaches to achieve these development objectives:

• creating the enabling environment so that the broad macroeconomic policy, legislative, institutional and social parameters are conducive to, or support, productive employment for women

• as part of the conditioning/enabling environment, taking into explicit consideration the employment impacts of broad macroeconomic policies and the gender implications of such employment impacts

• empowering women¾ through special protection and support arrangements for their biological function as child bearers and their socially ascribed responsibilities as child nurturers and homemakers; and through improving their access to and control over productive resources, including knowledge, time, land, credit, marketing channels, and the like.

• group mobilization and organization of women¾ especially for "economically weak" women or vulnerable women in individualized working environments¾ for production, improved access to credit and resources, increased decisionmaking, leadership, awareness and mutual support.

Contextual factors

Among the contextual factors in Indonesia that can potentially enable or disable the environment for women’s employment are the following sociocultural attitudes and perceptions:

• Indonesia’s development policy for women gives highest priority to the role of women within the family. However, overemphasis on their social roles may lead to women’s economic role being viewed as secondary or supplementary. The reality is that there is a significant and increasing proportion of women heads of households (estimated at 27.5 percent of all poor households and 13.2 percent of total households in 1987). Women’s contribution to household income is crucial to family survival in a majority of families.

• There are enormous cultural and ethnolinguistic diversities among regions in Indonesia, which place differing degrees of constraints upon women working outside the home.

• Although Indonesia is a predominantly Islamic country, women are "visible" in public and have freedom to engage in economic and social activities outside the household.

Development prospects and gender perspectives

The report identifies the following development prospects, employment implications and gender perspectives for the 1990s:

• The labour force participation growth rate is expected to be much higher for women 3.7 percent per annum) than for man (2.1 percent), meaning that there will be some 7 million women entering the job market for the first time during the next five years. In the absence of sufficient new job creation, this could further intensify competition for jobs between men and women, and increase women’s disadvantaged position and vulnerability to exploitation.

• The pattern of macroeconomic structural change will involve continued expansion of the non-oil manufacturing sector as the engine of growth and the comparatively slower growth of agriculture. There are several disturbing indications that there will not be significant labour absorption of women in the agricultural sector. In fact, a new wave of labour displacing elements is foreseen. The informal sector is expected to continue to dominate, whether as a safety valve to compensate for blocked entry into theory sectors, or as a catch-all sector, or as an informal survival strategy. The growth of labour-intensive, export-oriented manufacturing will tend to absorb more women than men workers, especially in the EPZs such as the Growth Triangle. Women are much more likely than men to remain in low-end informal sector activities.

• A trend toward a more flexible or disposable workforce and the casualization of employment is likely. This is likely to differentially affect women and men. There is already evidence in Indonesia to indicate that women are much more likely than men to be employed with non-regular status and to have less-than-standard labour protection.

Module Homepage