Financial Consequences of Ill Health and Informal Coping Mechanisms in Indonesia

We assess the financial risk of ill health for households in Indonesia, the role of informal coping strategies, and the effectiveness of these strategies in smoothing consumption. based on household panel data, we find evidence of financial risk from illness through medical expenses, while income from informal wage labor is exposed to risk for the poor and income from self-employed business activities for the non-poor. however, only for the rural population and the poor does this lead to imperfect consumption smoothing, while the non-poor seem to be able to protect current spending. borrowing and drawing on buffers, such as savings and assets, seem to be key informal coping strategies for the poor, which infers potential negative long term effects. while these results suggest scope for public intervention, the financial risk from income loss for the rural poor is beyond public health care financing reforms. rather, formal sector employment seems to be a key instrument for financial protection from illness, by also reducing income risk. key words: illness, income, consumption smoothing, coping strategies, Indonesia jel: o15, i1

Effects of decentralized health care financing on maternal care in Indonesia

We exploit variation in the design of sub-national health care financing initiatives in Indonesian districts to assess the effects of these local schemes on maternal care from 2004 to 2010

Effects of Decentralized Health Care Financing on Maternal Care in Indonesia

We exploit variation in the design of sub-national health care financing initiatives in Indonesian districts to assess the effects of these local schemes on maternal care from 2004 to 2010. The analysis is based on a district pseudopanel, combining data from a unique survey among District Health Offices with the Indonesian Demographic and Health Surveys, the national socioeconomic household surveys and the village census. Our results show that these district schemes contribute to an increase in antenatal care visits and the probability of receiving basic recommended antenatal care services for households that are not targeted by the national health insurance programs. We observe a decrease in home births. However, there is no effect on professional assistance at birth. We also observe variation in scheme design across districts as well as constraints to the effectiveness of local schemes. Including antenatal and delivery services explicitly in benefit packages and contracting local rather than national health care providers increases the effects on maternal care. Increasing population coverage reduces effectiveness, delineating limitations to local funding and risk pooling. Furthermore, we do not find any effects for districts outside Java and Bali, where access to basic health care remains a key policy concer

Migration and the Incidence of Child Labor: Evidence From Indonesia

The primary aim of this paper is to examine the consequence of parents migration to working activities of their children in Indonesia. In order to do this, the method of Propensity Score Matching (PSM) is employed to address self-selection bias into migration before applying the probit model to estimate the significance of the effect