Gender Inequality in the Indonesian Labor Market

Background

Economic restructuring that occurs in the globalization era lead to a shift in the sectors of manufacturing, technology, banking and managerial work from the industrial to developing countries. This also offers employment opportunities especially for women to fill job openings in those sectors, with lower wages. While this process opens employment opportunities for women, it also shows a phenomenon laden with issues of gender inequality, one of which, among others, is in the context of the wage gap between female and male workers.

Indonesia, as a developing country, has also experienced quite a rapid economic growth in line with the progress of globalization. The process of economic growth is also generally followed by an increase in population movement from rural to urban areas (urbanization) in search of better income. An interesting fact about this matter, based on the results of the Taniguchi and Tuwo (2014) study in Indonesia, showed that there was a gender wage gap as an implication of economic growth. According to Taniguchi and Tuwo (2014), the gender wage gap widened when there was an increase in income levels triggered by the migration of people from villages to cities. This phenomenon was also recognized when the World Bank report also identified that women's participation as workers did not translate into equal employment opportunities and/or equal income between male and female workers.