This book contains a comparative study of the determinants and process of internal and international labour migration in East Java, Indonesia. The main purpose of this PhD dissertation is to explore the diversity of spatial labour mobility, and identify the determinants, characteristic features and main consequences of these mobility patterns on the macro (national, region), meso (community) and micro level (household, individual). Three different areas in East Java, which differ in their agro-ecological, developmental and socio-cultural features are compared. Processes on the household level are related to macro-structural factors. Labour mobility is conceptualized as one possible response to rapid socio-economic change, next to other adaptations such as resorting to rural non-farm activities or cash-cropping.
The study shows that labour migration is much more diverse in terms of determinants and direction than existing studies suggest. Next to being a major source area for lifetime outmigrants, East Java is characterized by increasing levels of inter-island circulation and international migration, the latter flow which is often clandestine. Social networks are an important determinant of labour migration. Brokers figure prominently in the migration process and act as facilitators, organizers and exploiters all in one.
The diverse forms of labour mobility are no longer male dominated, but are increasingly becoming feminized. Labour circulation varies by agro-ecological zone and general level of development. However, increasing population pressure on dwindling natural resources, adverse agro-ecological conditions and processes of commercialization and economic incorporation have made more and more rural household susceptible to outmigration. It is evident that labour migration figures as a strategy in households within all socioeconomic strata in the rural areas. Taking part in wider economic circuits and engaging in wage labour is a strategy to accumulate resources for some rural households but is pure necessity for others in order to survive.
Ernst Spaan received a Bachelor degree in History at the Catholic University in Nijmegen, with a specialisation in socioeconomic history. At the same university, he obtained a Masters degree in Social Anthropology. He is currently working at the Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI) in the Hague, where his main activities concern projects sponsored by UNFPA dealing with the monitoring of resource flows for population activities as a follow-up to the ICPD conference on population and development held in Cairo in 1994.
