Youth transitions to urban, middle-class marriage in Indonesia: faith, family and finances

Abstract

This paper examines a timely topic in international youth studies – the transition to (middle-class) marriage – in a developing country, Indonesia. While early marriage in Indonesia is still common in rural areas and marriage itself remains almost universal, these trends are moving into reverse for urban, tertiary-educated middle-class young people. Discussion of the data begins with an analysis of survey responses and ‘fictionalised’ fieldwork narratives, and then moves to a discourse analysis of classified personal advertisements in Kompas, the national daily Indonesian newspaper geared to middle-class, urban, secular interests. Some provisional claims are offered about de-traditionalisation and re-traditionalisation trends in contemporary transitions to marriage for urban middle-class Indonesian young people of both sexes. It is concluded that contemporary transitions to successful marriage in Indonesia take place in reference to the three key tenets of faith, family and finances.