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Introduction
It is widely recognized that
gender gap exists in many countries including
Indonesia. Gender gap or its more popular terminology,
"gender discrimination" is concretely shown
in many aspect of women life -- lesser opportunities
for education, employment, income earning, and
role in community -- where women lack sufficient
participation in decision making than men. The
gender gap has its roots in ancient times where
the birth of a son is more favored than that
of a daughter because it will ensure continuity
of the family wealth and lineage. Even with
this day and age, discrimination between sexes
continue to pervade in many cultures, especially
in strong patrilineal or patriarchal societies
where as sons grow up, they experience much
better treatment and are provided with better
benefits and higher opportunities than girls.
Stereotyping of women and men in these societies
have become a way of life and thinking.
The word 'gender' became popular
in Indonesia after a new approach to improve
the role of women called "gender and development"
was introduced in the early 1990s to replace
two former approaches known as "women in
development" and "women and development".
These two approaches were considered to have
created resistance among bureaucrats because
they somehow reinforced strong feminist undertones
which are not widely accepted in Indonesia.
Gender and development, on the other hand, gained
acceptance from many groups because it was considered
to be a novel approach aimed at fomenting, and
promoting a more harmonious partnership between
men and women. Gender and development was seen
as a workable strategy to elicit the participation
of men in uplifting the lives of women.
To introduce this approach
and allow more public understanding of its underlying
principles, the Indonesian Government conducted
a number of gender-related training programs
through the Office of the Minister on the Role
of Women, through the support of universities
and academic institutions, and widely promoted
by non-government women and aid organizations.
The participants to these training programs
were not only women but also men from the private
sector and government institutions.
The government's recent policies
on women follow the standing principles of the
State Guidelines, and in accordance with international
declarations and agreements which aim to promote
and develop equal partnership between women
and men. Needless to say, this would mean that
many programs have to be focused on empowering
women to enable them to determine their role
in society and participate in developing the
community they belong. Since 1984, the Third
Five Year Development Plan has pursued the implementation
of many role-enriching empowerment programs
for women. The Central Bureau Statistics of
Indonesia (CBS), responsible for providing statistics
to the government, has been compiling gender
statistics basically to assess the impact of
the government's program interventions on women
and men. Through improved data collection systems
and methods, CBS has been successfully providing
the government with appropriate gender-based
information that could influence strong legislative
and political decisions to fund more development
programs for women, or provide them sufficient
representation in the government. For example,
the establishment of the Junior Ministry on
the Role of Women in 1978 which was then upgraded
as a state ministry in 1983 gave proof of Indonesia's
political commitment to this purpose and enabled
a more institutionalized representation and
advocacy for women in the bureaucracy.
Why
is gender statistics important?
Gender statistics is important
for many reasons. Firstly, it raises public
awareness on the plight and prevailing conditions
of women, and provides policy makers with sufficient
baseline information to institute favorable
changes to existing policies affecting women.
Secondly, it provides an unbiased source of
information to measure the actual and real effects
of government's policies and programs on the
lives of women and men. The database that is
created becomes solid indicators for instituting
improvements in areas where development is lacking.
Gender statistics is related
to a multitude of facts and indicators, be they
economic, social, political, or cultural. Thus
gender statistics cannot be taken lightly and
must be used without bias, for every bias that
existing statistics generate, especially where
women's condition as compared to men are concerned,
can gravely affect and influence the design
of policies aimed at correcting the disadvantages
if they exist. To be more effective, therefore,
gender statistics should be focused on problem
areas that continue to derail the attainment
of development goals. Whatever the objectives
may be, the accurate and proper generation of
gender statistics must be undertaken taking
into account the usefulness of the data to policy
and program evaluation.
Since gender-related problem
areas need to be diagnosed, one way to generate
a more comprehensive database is to mainstream
gender issues into the data collection and production
process, into the analysis and comparison so
that valuable but scarce gender segregated data
can be utilized more efficiently.
This paper, therefore, aims
to present the processes involved in generating
gender statistics in Indonesia. It will cover
issues related to the development of gender
statistics, as well as the methods involved
in collecting, compiling, and disseminating
gender statistics. The experience of the Central
Bureau of Statistics or CBS in this process,
as well as its collaborations with other institutions
in generating gender disaggregated data will
also be discussed.
I. Data Collection
The development of social
statistics in Indonesia is far behind than that
of economic statistics. This fact might have
been caused by the Bureau's major pre-occupation
continuously developed economic statistics since
Indonesian independence. It could be noted here
that during post- independence CBS was once
under the Ministry of Trade which undoubtedly
focused major data generation activities on
economic statistics. Social statistics, including
population statistics, gained paramount attention
only after global assessments in the early 1970s
recognized that economic development alone cannot
fully succeed without social development. Global
awareness of rapid population growth in developing
countries also influenced the development of
social statistics in Indonesia.
Social statistics facilitate
better ways of generating various information
broken down by sex compared to economic statistics.
Social and population data collection use the
household approach, and information on the sex
of household members is always collected. Household
surveys collecting information on sex of household
members are the Population Census (every 10
years), Intercensal Population Surveys (every
10 years), Labor Force Survey or Sakernas
(annually), National Socio-economic Survey or
Susenas (annually). Altogether these
surveys generate the necessary data to assess
social and economic progress of the population
from purely gender based perspectives and are,
in turn, used by the government to design the
appropriate programs and policies to address
the needs of the population.
The four sources of data mentioned
above collect similar information on women and
men in the economic sectors. A standard set
of questions is utilized to determine which
gender population mostly engage in economic
activities. For example, questions pertain to
the respondents' main occupation, which sector
of the industry he/she is employed, status of
work, how many hours does he/she work in a week
or whether he/she has engaged in any income
- earning activity during the previous week,
etc. Gender indicators generated from these
information sources are, among others, labor
force participation rate, employment rate, percentage
of agricultural workers, percentage of family
workers, and percentage of professional and
technical workers.
From these data sources, Sakernas
specifically collects valuable information on
wages and salaries. Obtaining this information
is very useful to complement wages and salaries
data collected from business and enterprises
which do not cover all sectors of industry but
only workers below the rank of supervisors.
Susenas is also one
of the most important and popular sources of
data on gender statistics. It is conducted annually
and can collect wide variety of information
with modest sample size possible for PC-data
processing. Every year, Susenas (otherwise
known as Core Susenas) collects data
on basic information related to demography,
health, education, labor force, access to mass
media, fertility and family planning, housing,
consumption and expenditure, crime, and travel.
Along with the Core Susenas a set of
additional questionnaires are also used. Called
the Module Susenas, it covers more detailed
information on consumption and expenditures,
social culture, crime, travel, health, education,
and housing. The survey for every modules are
conducted every three years.
Module Susenas covering
information on crime use the victim approach.
Every member of the selected households is asked
whether she or he has ever been a crime victim
and information collected are: a) nature of
crime; b) whether it was attempted or committed;
c) place, date, time of crime; d) target of
crime; e) type and value of loss; and f) reporting.
However this module can only produce data on
violence against women but does not provide
information on who committed the violence, and
whether it was done by household members or
not.
Based on CBS experience, data
on violence against women obtained from the
police department are likely underestimated.
Based on the households survey, it has been
shown that only some of the victims reported
the experience to the police. Some reasons indicated
were that the crime was too indecent to report,
fear of complications, just a waste of time,
and useless to report it.
In the social culture module
of Susenas, information collected is
very limited to, among others, the involvement
of a member of the selected households in the
following activities: a) cultural activity;
b) sport activity; c) social organization; and
d) reciprocity. However, data collection on
decision-making in the family and public life
has not been done through any of the surveys
mentioned earlier.
The series of sex disaggregated
data collected through economic survey is not
very long and still limited. Prior to 1980,
not many economic surveys collect information
on sex of the person who manage or work for
the type of business selected by the survey.
Although the 1983 Agricultural Census and the
1986 Economic Census started giving attention
to the role of women and men in the business
sector, still much of the information have treated
women with less priority. Assuming that many
women are engaged in agriculture production
and household and cottage industries, data collection
activities using household approach only provide
information on the gender of the person running
or working for the business. Furthermore, questions
on medium and large enterprises only cover the
number of women employees; employers are not
included.
To enrich gender data information
in CBS, secondary data collection is also undertaken.
Information related to gender statistics is
collected from the Ministry of Home Affairs,
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Social
Welfare, the Legislative Board, Judicial Board,
People's Representative Assembly, Board of Civil
Servant Administration, political parties, and
professional organizations. Through this data
collection method, gender data related to decision-making
in public life can be generated. However, there
have been difficulties encountered in collecting
gender data from professional organizations
where the information collected is often never
tabulated by gender.
II. Data Compilation
Limited publication space
is often cited by data producers as one main
reason for not processing data by sex. This
is not true. however, for population and social
data producers of CBS. Since it conducted a
more improved census in 1971, CBS has successfully
produced gender disaggregated data. Every table
was presented in 9 different ways, namely for
female, male, and total population, and was
combined with rural, urban, and urban plus rural
areas. Because of this newer method, the data
processing system currently employed for population
and social surveys now accommodate more comprehensive
gender break downs.
CBS believes that to be able
to present information on the particular role
of women and men in the economic sector, information
on sex of the employers, own account workers,
and the worker itself should be collected. The
absence of information on sex of the employers
and own account workers will create lesser understanding
of differences in participation of women and
men in the medium and large scale enterprises.
One will only know the difference in the number
of workers. For household business, either in
agriculture or in non agricultural sectors,
it would be possible to present differences
in entrepreneurial undertakings between female
and male, a good opportunity that must not be
disregarded only because of lack of data compilation
by sex, and/ or lack of awareness on the part
of data producers on the real value of these
data.
To promote the compilation
of gender disaggregated data, some selected
working units in CBS which produce economic
data were tasked to analyze the role of women
compared to men in the related sectors. This
task was intended to motivate units producing
statistics on agriculture including fishery,
domestic services, trade, and cottage and small
scale industry to give adequate attention to
gender statistics. A similar activity is now
currently being performed for estates, hotel
and tourism, and income earning activities.
III. Data Dissemination
CBS uses several ways to disseminate
data, such as publications, print outs, diskettes,
and tapes. There are two different publications
produced by CBS. The first one is based on census
or survey results, and the second is topical
- data drawn from various census and survey
results. Among those are publications on children
indicators, welfare indicators, poverty indicators.
Additionally, there are three annual publications
printed in book form which presents gender-disaggregated
tabular information and graphical data, entitled
Social Indicators On Women In Indonesia;
a booklet called Women and Men In Indonesia
sponsored by Unifem in 1995, and a pamphlet
called Indonesia: Gender Information
In Key Areas in collaboration with the Convention
Watch Working Group in 1996. Data presented
in these three publications were compiled from
various sources of data available in CBS and
other institutions.
Additionally, gender statistics
generated from surveys like Susenas and
Sakernas are not completely published
but are available to the public in computer
print outs, while raw data of each household
survey results are available in diskettes and
tapes.
The following books published
by CBS present cover gender information in tabular
form:
1. Population of Indonesia:
Population Census Results
- All tables related to
individual information are broken down by
sex
- All tables related
to households are not broken down by sex of
the head
2. Population of Indonesia:
Intercensal Population Survey Results
- All tables related to
individual information are broken down by
sex
- All tables related
to households are not broken down by sex of
the head
3. Labor Force Situation
In Indonesia: Labor Force Survey Results
- Many of tables of individual
data are broken down by sex
4. Welfare Statistics:
National Socioeconomic Survey Results
- Few tables related
to individual data are broken down by sex
5. Welfare Indicators
- Source: Census and surveys
conducted by CBS
- Few tables related
to individual data are broken down by sex
6. Social Indicators On
Women In Indonesia
- Source: a. Census and
survey conducted by CBS
- b. Secondary data from
various institutions
Almost all tables related to
individual and household data are broken down
by sex except those related to reproductive
information.
This book cover information
by various categories and presented in tabular
form:
- Population (10),
- Education (8),
- Labor force (13),
- Health and nutrition
(17),
- Family planning and
fertility (3),
- Family formation (8),
- Crime (5),
- Social cultural participation
(11),
- Political participation
(10).
Social Indicators On Women
In Indonesia is designed on the basis of
an analysis on government policy on women. Statements
assessing state ideology, government policies,
programs and projects on women compared to men
are analyzed to guide the compilation of statistics
and indicators presented in the publication.
IV. Popularize the Availability
of Gender Statistics in Line Ministries
The rationale behind the government's
gender -based ideology is the fact that women
and men play different roles in society, have
different control over resources, and consequently
have different needs. Unless these differences
are understood, and opportunities have been
identified to resolve them, gender policy and
gender planning as a whole cannot be pursued
realistically. Thus, it becomes necessary that
line ministries which are the implementors of
gender programs must themselves be the primary
source of good gender-related information.
Based on the mandate of Statistical
Decree No.7 issued in 1960, CBS must function
as a coordinating body for statistical activities
undertaken by government offices. This function
has helped CBS convince many line ministries
to put more attention on producing gender statistics.
Through series of discussions and meetings,
CBS emphasized to line ministries that greater
awareness of available gender statistics will
assist them in planning and implementing gender-responsive
pro-active programs which will ensure fair and
equitable outcomes of development policies,
programs, and projects for both women and men.
There were varied reactions
to this proposal from CBS. Those ministries
responsible for physical development gave less
attention to this task. Much of the available
gender statistics generated from these ministries
were mostly on gender breakdowns of their employees
or staff, and not on the target beneficiaries
of their activities or programs.
CBS is currently involved
in the activities promoted by the Ministry of
Planning and Development and the Ministry on
the Role of Women. Some of its related activities
concern: 1) evaluating the gains achieved by
women compared to men during the implementation
of the Sixth Five Year Development Plan; and
2) mainstreaming gender statistics in development
planning during the preparation of the Seventh
Five Year Development Plan. Both these activities
will be based on gender statistics and indicators
generated from each five year development plan.
V. Popularize Gender
Statistics at the Subnational Level
It is more difficult to make
people aware of gender differences in rural
and less-develop areas where the practice of
discriminating women still exists. This problem
is compounded, and made more difficult due to
the absence of information on the situation
of women and men in these areas. One strategy
identified has been to disseminate the information
through concise reading materials, books, and
pamphlets (all in the local language) which
are simple and easy to understand.
One breakthrough to this end
has been the enlargement of national household
sample for Susenas which made it possible
to obtain disaggregated data at the district
level. For example, there is now a readily-available
manual that has compiled welfare indicators,
and has been distributed to regional statistical
offices. In this manual, it has recommended
that tabular data should be disaggregated by
sex. This manual has also been distributed to
women study centers in the provinces.
Another effort to popularize
gender statistics at the subnational level is
to train young statisticians to study and learn
the differences between men and women in many
aspects of community life. Before a group of
new graduates from the Academy of Statistics
are assigned at the district statistical office,
they first undergo training on compiling gender
indicators to help them understand the situation
of their place of assignment.
All the provincial statistical
offices have published a booklet entitled Women
and Men in the Province. This booklet contains
simple tabular and graphical presentations of
the living conditions of women and men in particular
provinces.
Another publication which
provides information on women and men is the
book Analysis of Women and Children, while
several districts have initiated to publish
a book called Analysis of the Situation of
Women which covers a comparison between
women and men situation at the district level.
VI. Promoting Gender
Awareness in the Community
Formal trainings
have been conducted to raise awareness on gender
issues among government officials, researchers,
academicians, and practicians from non-government
organizations. The Ministry on the Role of Women
has initiated most of these training programs.
With the support of UNIFEM, CBS for its part
likewise conducted gender training among government
personnel from the data processing and information
system units. It is expected that with these
trainings, line ministries will understand more
about gender-related issues and concerns affecting
their programs on women and men.
Even with so much effort to
bring the importance of gender statistics closer
the community, the training that have been conducted
so far are still considered narrow in coverage
and limited in scope. CBS recommends more follow-up
activities to ensure public interest in gender
statistics, and the valuable information generated
by gender-based data collection methods. Schools
also need to be aware so they can pas the information
to students and parents. CBS can contribute
valuable information in this endeavor. It can
also pursue the cooperation of the media by
holding similar trainings on gender statistics
for journalists. Regular press releases on gender
issues, or developments related to the resolution
of gender conflicts will also generate that
much-needed public awareness in the community.
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