Childcare strategies of Javanese families with mothers on overseas labour contracts

Deteriorating economic conditions in the rural areas of Java have forced many families to reconsider how they are going to make ends meet, both now and in the future. Temporary female migration is increasingly seen as a viable option for families to improve their standards of living. Since the early 1980s thousands of Indonesian women have gone abroad, particularly to the Middle East, to work on two-year contracts as domestic servants. Many were married and already had young children. Under the conditions of the contract families had to remain in Indonesia, so children were entrusted as caregivers. This study examines the strategies for care of children under 5 years of age used by the caregivers of these female migrants bin the rural district if Purworejo, Central Java, Indonesia. Issues relating to how these children were cared for and how these childcare strategies affected their morbidity and nutritional status are examined. The study also explores how the impact of remittance transfers on household incomes affected childcare and children’s well-being. The analysis was based on the qualitative data collected specifically for the study and quantitative data drawn mainly from the 1992/93 AIDAB-funded Project on Women’s Work and Child Welfare (the 1992/93 Survei Ibu). Quantitative and qualitative data are used in a complementary manner to construct a comparative analysis of childcare strategies between families with migrant and non-migrant mothers. The results of the study show that the children of migrants and non-migrants had similar patterns of care. There was also no difference in the distribution of illness reported by caregivers in any of the age groups, whether or not the child belonged to a migrant woman. The study villages were relatively socially homogeneous and childcare was provided to migrants’ children by caregivers who had much in common with those caring for non-migrant children. This may explain much of the similarity in care and patterns of treatment of illnesses among migrants’ and non-migrants’ children. The similarities in the pattern of illness may also be due to limitations in the data: there were no data on the duration of illnesses and some illness episodes were included more than once because they were collected every three days. Similar percentages of illness observations among groups could conceal differences such as more episodes, or fewer episodes of longer duration. The analysis of child-nutritional status shows a high proportion of stunting among children of migrants. Despite the high earnings of women workers, the poverty that had originally motivated the mothers to migrate remained a factor in this situation. Children of migrant mothers did not benefit from their mothers’ earnings partly because of the consequence of spending patterns among family left behind. Remittances were often shared with the wide-kin network due to their role in taking care of the children while the mothers were away, reducing the potential benefit for the migrants’ children. Fathers, who usually controlled the spending of remittances, also tended to place a lower priority on food and health expenditures than mothers. Thus, it is possible that the children of migrant mothers were stunted because of that initial poverty and the spending pattern of remittances, not because of the effect of their mothers’ migration

Local Government Responses to HIV and AIDS in the Border Areas: a Case Study of Batam

Improving the welfare of the people who live in the border areas has been a concern of the Indonesian government for the past few years. Compared with other areas, most of the border areas are relatively less developed, especially in terms of human resources development. Rencana Pembangunan Jangka Menengah/RPJM 2005–2009 [National Development Plan of 2005–2009] noted the shift of development priorities in the border areas from security approach to the prosperity approach. One of the key indicators of social welfare is health, particularly reproductive health. This term covers maternal and child health, family planning, adolescent services, abortion, and the prevention and treatment of sexually transmitted infections (STI), which include HIV and AIDS. Previous studies indicated that STIs (including HIV and AIDS) are one of the emerging health problems in the border areas of Indonesia. Data show that incident rates of HIV and AIDS in these provinces are higher than in other provinces and higher than the national rates

Kondisi sosial-ekonomi masyarakat di lokasi Coremap II : kasus Kabupaten Biak Numfor

xxv, 159 hlm. : il. ; 21 cm

Resilience of families with the elderly amid the COVID-19 pandemic: lesson learned from two tourism villages in Yogyakarta, Indonesia

AbstractThe COVID-19 pandemic is affecting family members of all age groups in tourism villages in the Yogyakarta Special Region (Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta – DI Yogyakarta), Indonesia, due to the interruption of tourism activities. This study used a qualitative approach to adapt the theoretical framework of the Family Resilience Model (FRM) by exploring and comprehending the mechanisms through which families with elderly members, navigated the challenges. The result showed that the elderly provided some services to tourists and donated assets during the pandemic to support the family economy. The socio-cultural values of society and respect for the role of the elderly also contributed to the survival of the families. Moreover, the study contributed to understanding the maintenance of family resilience during the pandemic. This could be a lesson to develop assistance programs for the community and the elderly in using their potential