Abdul Khalik, Jakarta – The traditional view that most Indonesians live in rural areas will soon be turned upside down. Rapidly increasing urbanization and uncontrollable urban population growth will drive more and more of Indonesia's population into cities.
Research conducted by the Urban and Regional Development Institute (URDI) projects that by 2010 over 50 percent of Indonesian's population will reside in urban areas. By 2025, that 50 percent will have become 60 percent.
URDI's executive director and senior researcher, Wicaksono Sarosa, said considering that the current growth of the urban population had reached 4.4 percent per year, which far exceeded the total population growth of 1.7 percent per year, Indonesia would not be an agrarian state for much longer.
"Population growth in rural areas has been negative since 2000 because of the fast growth of urbanization levels. Meanwhile, urban population growth far surpasses national population growth because in addition to high urbanization, the birth rate is still greater than the mortality rate," he told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.
According to data from the Central Statistics Agency, the total Indonesian population in 2004 was almost 218 million, up from 205 million in 2000 and 178.5 million in 1990.
Wicaksono said the absence of employment in rural areas had forced young villagers to migrate to urban areas to seek work.
"Since the end of the 1990s, we have observed that most people found in country areas are either the elderly or children, because the young people have left their villages for the cities," he said.
Member of the House of Representatives Commission IX overseeing population, Hakim Sorimuda Pohan, agreed, and said the inability of the government to provide enough contraceptives to people had also played a major part in accelerating Indonesia's population growth.
"We are worried that if we don't control our fertility rate then our population growth will be uncontrollable. So, fertility control is a must. Currently, most people don't have the money to buy basic needs let alone buy contraceptives. The government must provide cheap contraception for people," he told the Post.
Indonesia was hailed by the international community for the success of its family planning program. In the 1970s and 1980s it managed to consistently slow its population growth, through the establishment of the National Family Planning Coordinating Agency (BKKBN). Then president Soeharto received awards from several international agencies for Indonesia's success, and many countries imitated Indonesia's program.
"BKKBN is not as effective as it was previously. At the provincial level, BKKBN still functions but in regencies or cities it is turned into another agency because regional autonomy law gives the authority to regional administrations to formulate their own policies. So, we have no more agencies concentrating on campaigning for family planning," Hakim said.
Beside the birth control issue, he said, Indonesia did not have a specific policy to encourage development in rural areas. In contrast, Hakim said, China was now concentrating its policies and efforts on making villages the center of industry, to discourage people from abandoning their ancestors' lands for the cities.
"I think Indonesia should start thinking about encouraging agro-industries so that rural areas can provide jobs to villagers. If they have jobs in their home town then why should they move to the city?" he said.
Besides urbanization, high unemployment has also forced people in urban and rural areas to seek employment overseas.
"I visited Syria recently, and I found 40,000 Indonesian workers there. Most of them work illegally so they work without legal protection. Syria is not a rich country in the Middle East, so you can imagine how many more Indonesians work in other rich countries.
In Saudi Arabia alone, there are 300,000 Indonesian workers," he said, adding that he believed Indonesia needed to immediately make an agreement on migrant workers with these countries.