The determinants of internal migration in a developing country: quantitative evidence for Indonesia, 1930-2000

Jelle van Lottum (1) , Daan Marks (2)

1 Department of Geography [Cambridge, UK]
2 International Institute of Social History

This study specifies and estimates a gravity model for interprovincial migration in Indonesia. Analyzing five cross-sections for Indonesia's 26 provinces for 5 survey years between 1930 and 2000 we show that throughout the twentieth century economic factors were more important in the explanation of interprovincial migration patterns in Indonesia than planned migration policy aimed at the redistribution of the population. In addition, our regression analysis demonstrates that the urban primacy of Jakarta, Indonesia's capital, had a strong effect on the direction and size of migration flows. Our findings thus suggest that the costly government-supported migration is not very successful and that a strongly centralized government induces migration flows to the capital. These findings have policy implications for other developing countries.

Mots clés: Social Sciences & Humanities

Domaines: Économie et finance quantitative [q-fin]

Jelle van Lottum, Daan Marks. The determinants of internal migration in a developing country: quantitative evidence for Indonesia, 1930-2000. Applied Economics, 2011, pp.1. ⟨10.1080/00036846.2011.591735⟩. ⟨hal-00719482⟩