The Determinants of Married Women's Autonomy in Indonesia

Abstract

This paper investigates the determinants of married women's autonomy in Indonesia using the 2000 Indonesian Family Life Survey 3 (IFLS3). It considers the role of kinship norms and the effect of labor force participation on married women's autonomy. The measure of autonomy is based on self-reported answers to an array of questions relating to decision-making authority in the household. They include own-clothing, child-related and personal autonomy, physical mobility, and economic autonomy. The analysis examines if variations in women's autonomy are due to the prevailing kinship norms related to marriage in the community. In keeping with the anthropological literature, the analysis finds that living in patrilocal communities reduces physical autonomy for married women, whereas living in uxorilocal communities improves personal and child-related decision-making autonomy. Estimation results show that labor force participation, higher educational attainment, and increases in household wealth all have positive effects on married women's autonomy in Indonesia.Female autonomy, kinship norms, labor force participation, Indonesia,

The Intrinsic Value of Agency: The Case of Indonesia

“…Although autonomy and agency are frequently used interchangeably, there is considerable debate about both their meanings and their differences (Abrams, 1998;England, 1993;Kabeer, 1998;Rammohan & Johar, 2009). Overall, autonomy is typically focused on self-reliance and sufficiency (Friedman, 2000) while agency allows for cooperation as well as self-sufficiency.…”

“…Using almost the same household decisions as we use here, albeit from a different wave of the IFLS, Rammohan and Johar (2009) studied the determinants of married women's autonomy. In contrast to our research, they used women's household decision-making as the dependent variable, sorting women into three groups by type of autonomy.…”

Grandparental help in Indonesia is directed preferentially towards needier descendants: A potential confounder when exploring grandparental influences on child health

“…Indonesia has a population of approximately 239 million people (United Nations, 2011) and more than 300 ethnic groups with a wide range of marriage norms (Jensen and Suryani, 1992;Rammohan and Johar, 2009). Over the 20th century, there has been considerable demographic and economic change, including a dramatic drop in the fertility rate (United Nations, 2011), rapid improvements in child survivorship and overall life expectancy (Molyneaux and Gertler, 2000) and increases in educational levels (Elias and Noone, 2011).…”

Does grandparental help mediate the relationship between kin presence and fertility?

“…Indonesia has more than 300 ethnic groups with a wide range of marriage norms, from the Minangkabau tribe of West Sumatra, which is the largest matrilineal kinship system in the world (Rammohan and Johar 2009) to the Balinese people, the predominant group on the island of Bali, who are overwhelmingly Hindu and tend to be virilocal (living with or near the husband's kin) after marriage (Jensen and Suryani 1992). In 1993, the total fertility rate (TFR) of Indonesia was 2.90 and by 2007 it had dropped to 2.21, but many older women in this sample began their reproductive careers in the 1960s, when the TFR was approximately 5.60 (United Nations 2011).…”