Gendered Support for Older People in Indonesia: A Comparative Analysis

Abstract

This chapter considers implications of population ageing as it may impact on normative gender preferences for old age care in three major Indonesian ethnic groups. The Asian literature on gender is well known for the strong preference for sons characteristic of patrilineal family systems in major mainland cultures. Elsewhere, however, the situation can be very different, of which the most striking is the powerful preference for daughters, and the eminent role that women play in the family economy and society of Southeast Asia’s largest matrilineal population, the Minangkabau of Sumatra. Javanese and Sundanese family systems are also often remarked for women’s influential roles, and people commonly state preferences for support and personal care from daughters. Comparative analysis drawing on ethnographic and systematic local survey data for rural Javanese, Sundanese, and Minangkabau communities is used to illuminate gendered support in relation to differing patterns of inter-generational exchange, socio-economic status, migration and the availability of children. Networks, and the differences in socio-economic status they maintain, introduce considerable heterogeneity into support arrangements, revealing considerable old age vulnerability and inability to observe gender norms in lower socio-economic strata. This structured diversity is compared to the approaches of two prevailing demographic models of intergenerational transfers and the standard survey methodologies on which they commonly rely. Major forms of population heterogeneity, including gendered relationships, are systematically excluded from these approaches, which in consequence give an unrealistic picture of social and demographic adaptation.