The trend in age at menarche in Indonesia: birth cohorts 1944–1988

Employing the Indonesian Family Life Survey, this paper depicts the trend in age at menarche in Indonesia for women born in 1944–1988. Mean age at menarche decreased from 14.39 years for birth year 1944 to 13.18 years for birth year 1988. Subsequently, this trend is related to the improvement in material conditions, measured by GDP per capita in childhood. The OLS results indicate that this decrease is largely explained by the improvement in material conditions. If age at menarche is considered an indicator of biological standard of living, these results suggest that the improvement in material conditions during the period converted to an improvement in biological standard of living.