Enacting the Domestic Workers Protection Law: Saving the Economy
Indonesia faces an uncomfortable reality: economic growth does not automatically deliver prosperity. Amidst this slowdown in growth quality, the nation continues to rely on growth-promoting mechanisms in extractive sectors that cause environmental damage.
The time has come for the government to invest in the foundation supporting the entire production system: the care economy—the economy of caregiving that ensures sustainable living.
INEFFICIENT FOUNDATIONS OF PRODUCTIVITY
Poverty rates remain around 9–10%, open unemployment persists at roughly 5%, and female labour force participation in Indonesia stagnates at approximately 53–55%, falling significantly behind ASEAN neighbours who have surpassed 60%.
At the heart of the care economy stand millions of domestic workers (PRT). They ensure households function, children are cared for, the elderly are looked after, and millions of workers—particularly middle-class women employers—can enter and remain in the labour market. Without domestic workers, significant portions of the economy would grind to a halt.
Despite their crucial role, the state and parliament remain reluctant to acknowledge domestic workers as workers: they operate without decent labour standards, without systematic protection, without economic recognition. The paradox is stark: the economy depends on domestic workers, yet parliament continues to deny this reality.
The Domestic Workers Protection Bill is not merely social regulation but a rational, strategic, and urgent economic policy. A delay exceeding two decades in regulating the very foundation of the economy is a shameful betrayal of a nation founded on Pancasila principles.
The parliament, controlled by the government’s supporting coalition, has yet to align with the President. The Presidential promise to enact the Domestic Workers Protection Law within three months by Labour Day on 1 May 2025 remains unfulfilled, as does the promise from parliamentary leadership to ensure the bill’s passage early this year.
There can be no economy without care, nor productivity without social reproduction. Daily, domestic and caregiving work ensures the workforce is ready to work, new generations grow healthy, and social life continues.
Market economists have long deadened their consciences by regarding caregiving work as ‘not economics’, uncounted in GDP, unprotected in law, undervalued in policy, and cruelly relegated to the ‘unpaid sector’.
The result is a care deficit. The caregiving burden falls on women without systemic support as exists in market economies. Data shows Indonesian women spend three to four times longer on unpaid caregiving work than men.
This double burden within households prevents millions of women from engaging in productive employment, depresses family incomes, and widens gender inequality. Meanwhile, millions work in the domestic sector with low wages, long hours, and high vulnerability to violence. This represents not only social injustice but economic inefficiency.
Global experience demonstrates that investment in the care economy is the fastest and most inclusive job creation strategy. The caregiving sector is labour-intensive, absorbs female workers, increases household consumption, and strengthens local economies. In other words, recognising and protecting domestic workers is not a fiscal burden but an economic investment with cascading effects.
THE UNJUSTIFIED DELAY IN ENACTING THE DOMESTIC WORKERS PROTECTION LAW
Arguments against the bill repeat: it will burden employers, bureaucratise households, and damage ‘familial’ relationships. New reasons then emerge, including the need to protect employers from legal liability and address concerns about domestic workers organising and unionising. All these objections are logically weak and morally problematic.
Recognising and protecting work is not burdensome because these are workers’ rights. Minimum standards encompass fair wages, humane working hours, rest rights, and protection from violence. These actually create certainty and professionalism. No modern economy rests on unregulated labour relations.
The fear of bureaucratisation is excessive. The Philippines, Thailand, Europe, Canada, and even South Africa have ‘successfully implemented’ Pancasila principles by regulating domestic workers without destroying household life, because what is regulated are fundamental rights, not private life.
The ‘familial’ excuse often masks feudal power imbalances. Humane relationships do not fear justice. If domestic workers are considered family, why are their fundamental rights not guaranteed?
Opposition to the bill is not technical but resistance to acknowledging that domestic work is economic work, and that those who have long remained invisible deserve recognition and protection.
Each year of delay carries real costs: the care sector remains informal and low-productivity. Women lose economic opportunities due to unshared caregiving burdens.
The consequences ripple: intergenerational female poverty, and the nation loses opportunities to create millions of decent jobs in a sector most needed by society.
An economy without a strong care foundation will continue generating fragile growth: low productivity, high inequality, and stagnant welfare. The nation lacks not resources but morality and human ethics: recognition.
Within the framework of Pancasila Economics, caregiving work is not peripheral but the actual foundation of social life and national productivity. Social justice must not be merely moral rhetoric but economic rationality: protecting the most vulnerable to strengthen the entire system.
Recognising domestic workers means recognising care as a strategic sector, opening rapid job creation, increasing female labour participation, breaking cycles of domestic poverty, and strengthening the nation’s socio-economic foundation. This is not merely a policy choice.