Fertility Transitions, Family Structure, And Population Policy by Calvin Goldscheider

Author:Calvin Goldscheider [Goldscheider, Calvin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Sociology, General
ISBN: 9780429715556
Google: nAScDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2019-04-11T04:53:44+00:00

The Indonesian Setting

Adverse conditions of geographic size and dispersion and relatively low per capita income have not prevented Indonesia from experiencing demographic transitions. The infant mortality rate, for example, fell from 80.7 per 1,000 in the period 1972-1976 to 70.2 per 1,000 in the period 1982-1987; and the total fertility rate fell from 4.6 in the period 1976-1979 to 4.0 in the period 1981-1984 (NICPS, 1989, Tables 8.1 and 6.2). Growing contraceptive use, indicated by the rise in prevalence rates from 27.2 percent in 1980 to 47.7 percent in 1987, is undoubtedly the factor most responsible for Indonesia’s fertility decline.

Indonesia’s increasing rates of urban growth and urbanward migration also indicate that the country is going through a mobility transition. Urban growth rates remained comparatively low at roughly 4 percent per annum until the mid-1970s, but since then have risen to 5.4 percent, over four percentage points higher than the rural growth rate. Data from the Intercensal Survey show that 35.6 percent of Indonesia’s population was urban in 1985 and under reasonable estimates could reach 50 percent by the year 2020 (Gardiner, 1989; Gardiner, 1990).

The World Bank estimates that 60 percent of the 1971-80 intercensal urban growth rate was due to natural increase and the remaining 40 percent to the combined effects of rural-urban migration and reclassification (The World Bank, 1983, cited in Gardiner, 1989). High urban growth rates between 1980 and 1985 imply, however, that in-migration is now the dominant factor in the urban growth rate (Gardiner, 1990).

These trends have certain implications for policy makers. Although fertility has fallen at a rapid pace over recent years, health care improvements and resultant mortality declines assure that population growth rates remain moderately high. At the same time, urban growth rates outstrip rural ones, and a significant portion of this growth can be attributed to in-migration, a process fueled by expanding educational and employment opportunities in cities, and deteriorating resources and unfavorable tenancy arrangements in certain rural areas. Given prospective urban growth and the contribution that migrants make to this growth, both directly through their own presence and indirectly through their fertility, it is vitally important that policy makers understand migrant characteristics and behavior patterns.

The Indonesian National Family Planning Coordinating Board (BKKBN) has recently introduced several programs which affect contraceptive choices. The Contraceptive Self-Reliance Program will shift client use toward the private and commercial sectors and will also expand community participation in family planning funding and decision making. The Blue Circle Social Marketing Program will promote the sale of contraceptive products by private doctors, midwives, and pharmacies. Finally, the Effective Method of Choice Program will encourage the use of IUDs, implant, and sterilization, methods considered cost-effective by program managers. Given their different characteristics and residential patterns, nonmigrants and migrants should be differentially affected by these programs, and identifying these effects could be useful for designing appropriate targeting and marketing strategies.

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