The 1985 Intercensal Survey of Indonesia: Employment by Industry and Occupation.

Type Working Paper
Title The 1985 Intercensal Survey of Indonesia: Employment by Industry and Occupation.
Author(s)
Publication (Day/Month/Year) 1987
URL http://www.popline.org/node/352365
Abstract
Changes in industry and occupation in Indonesia were investigated. Table 1 presents a comparison of working population according to industry separately for males and females for rural and urban areas. According to the figures, there was not much change. The agriculture sector continued to be the major industry, absorbing more than half of the work force, followed at a considerable distance by services, trade, and manufacturing. The growth rate of employment in agriculture was much lower than in trade, which increased its share of employment from 10 to 11.5% for males and from 19 to 21% for females. The status of services as the major industry in absorbing urban female workers was lost to the trade sector, which rapidly increased its share from 34.5% in 1980 to 40% in 1985, compared with 35% in services. The trade sector was the only urban industrial sector in which the absolute growth of female employment exceeded that of males. In the rural areas the recorded growth of female employment during the 1980-85 period was almost 3 times that of males (29% and 11%). The growth of female employment was considerably more rapid than that of males in 4 major industries--agriculture, trade, services, and manufacturing--both in numbers and percentage increase. There was almost no change in the proportionate share of these major industries, particularly among males. Interpretation of these data is a problem. It is possible that lack of jobs in traditional sectors pushed males out of rural areas to greater extent than females. There is some question as to whether the apparent changes in participation rates between 1980-85 were real. Table 2 shows the comparison of working population by province according to major industry, separately for males and females. The general trends shown by the total Indonesian figures hold in most provinces, but in certain provinces there were substantial variations from the general pattern. Table 3 shows a comparison of the working population in different industries by employment status for males and females. For females, there was a marked decline in the proportion of "self-employed with helper" category which held in all industries. A significant rise overall in the "family worker" status category was caused totally by a rise in this status category in agriculture and manufacturing; most other industries showed a marked drop in the proportion of family workers. More than half of female workers and 1/3 of male workers were underutilized, and the category of underutilization increased during the 1980-85 period for both males and females. In sum, employment in most occupations grew over the 1980-85 period, faster among women than men and faster in urban than rural areas.

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