Employment Behavior and the Family in Indonesian Transmigration

The transmigration program in Indonesia involves the government-financed movement of landless people from the crowded Inner Islands of Java, Bali, and Lombok to agricultural-based settlements in the Outer Islands. A major goal is to stimulate regional development and create employment opportunities, but the success of many settler families in the individual settlement schemes is clearly linked to participation in off-farm employment (OFE). Evidence from household interviews in nine South Sumatran transmigration settlements indicates that employment away from the family's own farm is extensive. While such employment is dominated by the male head of the family, in slightly more than half of the households both the head and the spouse held some form of OFE. There is a strong spatial bias in the patterns of employment: work on the settlement scheme is much more common than work off the scheme. The considerable variation in OFE participation by settlement is attributable to environmental characteristics that affect farm production and the availability of and access to jobs. Individual characteristics such as age are important in explaining the incidence of OFE, but the integrated use of family labor resources is the real key to understanding employment behavior. The number and ages of children, other family members working off-farm, and the presence of home industries are important influences in family decisionmaking. The theoretical contributions of Chayanov and Low are useful in understanding peasant economies, especially off-farm employment behavior, but they must be extended by incorporating employment histories, the dynamics of family structure, and individual skills. The focus on family resources and characteristics is an important basis for expanding our knowledge of OFE, yet such advances must be complemented by spatial, temporal, and contextual factors in deriving a broader theory of peasant economies.