In early 2010, just over 3000 young men and women aged 20-34 living in Jakarta, Bekasi and Tanggerang participated in the Greater Jakarta Transition to Adulthood Survey. Funded by Australian Research Council, Ford Foundation, WHO, ADSRI ‐ The Australian National University and the National University of Singapore, the survey is the first comprehensive study of the transition to adulthood in Indonesia. The survey involved face-to-face interviews which collected a wide range of information about respondents’ demographic characteristics, their work and education history, their relationship and union formation history, as well as their attitudes and values. In addition a self-completion questionnaire was given to respondents in order to collect more sensitive information about their sexual history and drug use. In addition 80 in-depth interviews were conducted among selected respondents to gain a greater insight about the challenges and opportunities they face in navigating the transition to adulthood.
The resulting data provided valuable information about the lives of young people in Jakarta, and captured a large variety of experiences from individuals working as informal food vendors to highly educated respondents with successful careers. Insights from the survey were used to develop a series of policy briefs highlighting key areas of concern such as the underemployment of senior high school graduates, to the lack of child care options for mothers who would like to work. These policy briefs were presented at BAPPENAS (Indonesian National Development Planning Board).
Three years on from the initial survey, a team from ADSRI including Dr Iwu Utomo, Professor Peter McDonald, Professor Terry Hull, Dr Ariane Utomo and Anna Reimondos are heading back to Jakarta to begin the field work for the second wave. The aim is to recontact the original participants and collect updated information about their current circumstances to see how their lives have changed. We expect that the original participants, now aged 23-37, will have undergone many demographic changes over the last three years including forming new relationships and starting or expanding their families. We will also add new respondents aged 20-22 years old in our second wave of the survey.
More information about the survey.
Photo: Iwu Utomo and Peter McDonald with David Hulse (Representative) and staff of the Ford Foundation Jakarta after signing the second wave funding agreement contract of the Greater Jakarta Transition to Adulthood Study.