Migration Under Crisis and Recovery: Social Safety Nets in Two Indonesian Regions

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Rapid economic development in Indonesia and other developing nations has enticed many rural residents to migrate to cities, where industrial and service-sector jobs have been more numerous and remunerative. In the face of rapid economic downturns, however, many of these migrants are forced to return to the villages and households from which they came. Relatively little scholarly attention has been given to these return migrants and to the ways that they interact with their families and communities. The central goal of this research project is to examine the effects of changing migration patterns on household structures and both household-level and community-level "safety nets" during Indonesia's economic collapse in the late 1990s. Through a comparative case study in villages in western Java and southern Sulawesi, in-depth qualitative fieldwork and quantitative survey methods will be used to investigate which household members are more or less effectively supported by crisis-driven mobility and the associated changes in household composition. The research will aim to clarify how changing household composition as a result of increased rural-return migration is influencing the burdens and benefits of rural safety nets for particular groups of individuals in low-income households, including men, women, children, and the elderly. This research will contribute to understanding the dynamics of migration as well as the roles of both household- and community-level safety nets during economic crises like the one recently afflicting Indonesia. The project will provide in-depth empirical information regarding different forms of safety nets, and it will examine gender and age hierarchies within households. The theoretical contributions of the project will focus on conceptualizing the interplay among household structures, age and sex hierarchies, and village-scale crisis survival strategies, with an emphasis on labor and resource allocation between and within households. Through the two-village comparison, the project will also investigate the role of place in shaping these interactions. In practical terms, the project aims to contribute to understanding not only the coping strategies of households during the crisis, but also which survival mechanisms are most successful for recovery and for whom.