The Institute of Asian Studies at Universiti Brunei Darussalam is pleased to announce the publication of IAS Working Paper No 66: Migration, Ethnic Diversity, and Economic Growth: Towards an Empirical Understanding of Regional Development in Indonesia by Aris Ananta, Evi Nurvidya Arifin, Ari Purbowati, and Paul J. Carnegie. Please see below for details.
Abstract: It is a commonly held assumption that while migrants can contribute to economic growth, their impacts on population composition may also generate socio-cultural tensions and political instability. As such, ethnic diversity of a province or a community may have a positive or negative affect on regional development. This raises the question of whether impacts of migration on ethnic diversity correlate with economic growth. Taking Indonesia as the locus of the study, the following paper presents new empirical data in response to that question. By analysing statistics on ethnic groups and regional composition derived primarily from the Indonesia 2010 Population Census and cross referencing them with recent ethnic classifications and fractionalisation and polarisation indexes, a fuller overview of ethnic diversity across the archipelago and its relationship to migration and economic growth is gained. Based on the data, a mixed pattern emerges on the role ethnic diversity plays in intermediating the relationship between migration and economic growth. The findings suggest a correlation between indicators of ethnic diversity and economic regions but in less developed regions in particular, other variables also modulate the relation between migration and economic growth. While ethnic diversity appears to be a primary variable in more developed regions.
Authors
Aris Ananta is an economist-demographer with an inter-disciplinary perspective. He is Professor at the Faculty of Economics and Business, Universitas Indonesia and Visiting Professor at the Centre for Advanced Research (CARe), Universiti Brunei Darussalam. Aris is currently the President of Asian Population Association. His research interests include economics of ageing population, economics of population mobility, social protection, and ethnicity. He has published widely in his fields including Demography of Indonesia’s Ethnicity (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies) and Indonesia’s Population: Ethnicity and Religion in a Changing Political Landscape (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies)
Evi Nurvidya Arifin is Senior Assistant Professor at the Centre for Advanced Research (CARe), Universiti Brunei Darussalam and Adjunct Researcher at the Demographic Institute Faculty of Economics and Business, Universitas Indonesia, Indonesia. She has published widely on various themes, for instance on quantifying Indonesia’s ethnic diversity in Asian Population Studies, Chinese Indonesians in Asian Ethnicity, economic development in Ageing in Asia: Contemporary Trends and Policy Issues, and elderly health status in Indonesia in the Journal of Population Ageing.
Ari Purbowati is a Statistician at Directorate of Population and Labor Statistics, Statistics-Indonesia. She earned her Masters degree in economics from Universitas Indonesia. Ari is involved in the management of surveys and censuses such as the Inter-Census Population Survey and the Population Census, with the most recent being the registration-based 2020 Population Census. Her publications include work on the declining dominance of Javanese in multi-ethnic Indonesia in Population Review.
Paul J. Carnegie is Associate Professor of Political Science at the Institute of Asian Studies, Universiti Brunei Darussalam. He has varied interests in Southeast Asia and Asia-Pacific especially comparative politics and human security with an enduring focus on Indonesia. Paul has published widely in his fields including The Road from Authoritarianism to Democratization in Indonesia (Palgrave Macmillan) and Human Insecurities in Southeast Asia (Springer).
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