Estimating The National Impact Of The Financial Crisis In Indonesia By Combining A Rapid Qualitative Study With Nationally Representative Surveys

This paper draws on a rapid qualitative assessment of the impact of the financial crisis in Indonesia, to generate hypotheses about the potential national impacts. The authors test these hypotheses using nationally representative labor force surveys from before and after the onset of the financial crisis. They find that Indonesia weathered the storm rather well: there is no evidence for increased school drop out; labor force participation fell, particularly for young workers, whilst unemployment rose for the young, but fell for workers over 25. The changes for female workers were the same as those for male workers and there do not appear to have been any major sectoral shifts in labor.