High population rate threatens prosperity
JAKARTA (JP): High population growth and a widening social gap remain a major threat to Indonesia, despite the county's relative success in family planning and economic development, a respected demographer has warned.
Aris Ananta, a lecturer at the University of Indonesia's school of economics, told The Jakarta Post on Saturday that the progress made by the family planning program would not bring dramatic change to the size of the population or the distribution of income for the next 15 to 20 years.
Indonesia currently has 193 million people, making it the world's fourth-most-populous nation.
"Although population growth will decrease from 1.66 percent in 1995 to 1.23 percent in 2005 and further to 0.68 percent in 2020, the absolute number of people in the country is still expected to continue increasing," he said, adding that the population in 2005 was expected to be 222.8 million and that it would be 254 million in 2020. He warned that the population growth would increase demand for goods and services.
He said that since 1976 the family planning program had successfully brought down the population growth rate to an average of 1.6 percent annually. "If the family planning had not been carried out, Indonesia's population would have been 237.2 million by 1995."
Aris, also deputy chief of the university's demography institute, said that policy makers should carefully consider the negative effects of high population growth.
He said he believed that the increase in population size would worsen the unequal distribution of population, including the concentration of the population in Java and Sumatra.
He predicted that 50 percent of Indonesia's population would remain in Java, 20 percent in Sumatra, while the remaining 30 percent would be distributed among the other islands.
"The inhabitants of Java Island will increase from 107.5 million in 1990 to 144.5 million in 2020; in Sumatra, from 36.4 million to 60.7 million. Those in Kalimantan will increase to 16.6 million in 2020 from nine million in 1990 and (the combined population of) Maluku and Irian Jaya (will increase) to seven million from three million in the same period," he said.
He also predicted that the population density in Java and Sumatra would rise from the current 813 and 77 per square kilometer to 1,093 and 128 per square kilometer respectively in 2020.
"Kalimantan and Irian Jaya will remain sparsely-inhabited, with a density of 31 and 14 per square kilometer respectively," he said.
He added that the unequal distribution of population would mean some areas received more of the government's attention than others.
He said the rapid economic development in Java and Sumatra would accelerate the migration of people to the two islands.
"It is not surprising that pollution, traffic congestion and 'modern diseases' such as stress, stroke and heart attacks are posing new problems in urban areas in the two islands," he said.
The 41-year-old professor, who got his PhD in economics from Duke University in North Caroline in 1983, said that neither the slowing population growth rate nor the rapid rate of economic growth would have a significant impact on the widening social disparities in Indonesia.
"They will bring only small changes to the unequal distribution of income," he said.
Quoting 1993 data from the Central Bureau of Statistics, Aris said that 43.87 percent of the national income was distributed to almost 20 percent, of the population, or 37 million people; 41.5 percent went to the next 40 percent, or 74 million people; while the remaining 14.61 percent of the wealth was shared among the poorest 40 percent of the population, or 74 million people.
"Although the economy is continuing to boom, the distribution of income in 2020 will be very different, because the high-income people will also continue to improve their education and quality of life," he said. (rms)