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Middle-class women work as much as their lower-class peers: WB
The participation rate of women in the workforce has continued to increase in recent years, but the differences in participation rates between middle-class women and their lower-class and upper-class peers are relatively small
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span>The participation rate of women in the workforce has continued to increase in recent years, but the differences in participation rates between middle-class women and their lower-class and upper-class peers are relatively small.
In 2016, labor participation rate of middle-class women, who spent between Rp 1.2 million (US$85.70) and Rp 3.2 million per person per month, reached nearly 60 percent, only slightly higher than women in the lower classes at around 50 percent, according the World Bank’s report Indonesia's Aspiring Indonesia: Expanding the Middle Class released on Thursday.
"Indonesian middle-class women do not work much more than non-middle-class women," the report stated.
President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo is seeking to upgrade Indonesia's income status and escape the middle-income trap, a situation in which a country’s economy stagnates at middle-income levels and fails to move to high-income status.
Statistics Indonesia (BPS) recorded that the country's GDP per capita increased slightly to $3,927 in 2018 from $3,876 in 2017. With such per capita income, Indonesia is classified as a middle-income country.
“Having the right policies can unlock Indonesia’s development potential and propel the country to high-income status,” World Bank acting country director for Indonesia Rolande Pryce said at an event to release the report.
During the period between 2002 and 2016, the middle-class population grew to 52 million people, or 20 percent of the total population, a survey cited by the report shows. More than half of the population fell into the category of aspiring middle-class, meaning they spent between Rp 532,000 and Rp 1.2 million per person per month, over the same period.
The number of aspiring middle-class people, or those not considered poor but who have yet to achieve economic security, totaled 115 million people, or 45 percent of the population, last year.
According to a 2014 study by the World Bank, 40 percent of the middle-class population fell down the ladder to aspiring middle-class status and 10 percent fell into the poor class, a group that spends less than Rp 354,000 person per month, in 2014.
"The challenge now for Indonesia is less one of poverty reduction and more one of providing economic mobility and escaping the middle-income trap," the report states.
The report also found a gap between the participation rates of women in urban and rural areas, regardless of class. Middle-class women, who face a less than 10 percent chance of falling into poverty, showed a slightly higher participation rate in rural areas at around 59 percent than around 57 percent in urban areas.
However, among working poor women, the gap between those in urban and rural areas was wider at around 41 percent and 57 percent, respectively.
A similar gap was also found among working upper-class women, who spend more than Rp 6 million per person per month, with the urban participation rate at around 70 percent and the rural participation at around 61 percent.
"Education plays a role in female labor participation rates, but this is not the whole story," the report states.
Women's lower educational attainment rate than that of men can be seen in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields. Women's attainment rate was recorded at 12.3 percent, far lower than men's rate at 29.3 percent, according to the World Economic Forum's (WEF) Global Gender Gap Report 2020 released in
December.
Moreover, the male workforce in general totaled 75.7 million people, 35 percent higher than the female workforce of 49.2 million people, according to WEF's report.
However, unlike women in higher economic classes, the driving factor behind the labor force participation rate of lower-class women is not education, according to Institute for Development of Economic and Finance (Indef) researcher Enny Sri Hartati.
"Middle and upper-class women join the workforce because they want to," she told The Jakarta Post on Friday. "But lower-class women work because their spouses’ jobs are not sufficient."
"The higher the education of middle-class women, the more likely they are to participate in the workforce," the Indef analyst added. "However, the higher the participation rate of lower-class women, the more likely it is that their financial situation is worsening." (dfr)
