AGE-STRUCTURAL TRANSITION IN INDONESIA: A comparison of macro- and micro-level evidence

This paper responds to recent calls for empirical study of the impact of age-structural transition. It begins by reviewing evidence of cohort oscillations in twentieth-century Indonesia, which indicates that current older generations are likely to have smaller numbers of children on whom they may rely than generations before and after them. However, to assess whether the imbalances implied by this situation are actually influencing people's lives, attention to further factors shaping the availability and reliability of younger generations, notably differences in socio-economic status and in patterns of inter-generational support flows, is required. Community-level Indonesian data confirm that elders in the lower social strata are child-poor. Social structural and family network patterns, however, have a greater influence on the availability of inter-generational support than cohort differentials.