Mari Pangestu is no ordinary economist

Mari Pangestu is no ordinary economist

By T. Sima Gunawan

JAKARTA (JP): Mari Elka Pangestu is one the few Indonesian women who are policy-oriented economists. She was the second Indonesian women to earn a PhD and the first to obtain the title from overseas.

She was born in Jakarta in 1956. Her late father, Jusuf Panglaykim, was a noted scholar, and her mother, Evi E., is a pharmacist. When she was nine, Mari's family moved to Australia where she attended elementary school. She graduated from junior high school in Singapore, and then continued her education in Australia. After obtaining a masters degree from the Australian National University, she went to the University of California to pursue her PhD.

In 1986, she returned to Indonesia and started teaching at the University of Indonesia. In 1989 she was appointed head of the economics department of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

She is married to Adi Harsono, an engineer who works for a foreign oil company. They have two children.

In conjunction with the 30th anniversary of the New Order government on March 11 and International Women's Day on March 8, The Jakarta Post interviewed Mari at her office earlier this week.

Question: Why did you chose to become an economist?

Answer: Actually it was a bit of an accident. I wanted to become a medical doctor in the beginning. In my first year at university I actually took science and economics because I still intended to pursue medical studies, but in the end I got interested in economics because it mainly asks the basic questions on how to help people within certain countries, and about development issues. Yes it was my own choice, but unconsciously I must have been affected by my father who was also an economist, even though I'd like to deny that.

Q: You mentioned helping people. Is it really what you want to do?

A: Yes. I think what makes economics an important subject is that you are dealing with livelihood of people. You are talking about how you make people's welfare better, how you improve the welfare and wellbeing of a certain group within society who need to be helped -- like the poor.

I am not a theoretical economist, I am more what we call a policy-oriented economist. We have to come up with studies and research which lead to some kind of policy recommendation. I think what I always have as the bottom line is how it affects people.

Q: Why did you prefer to become a scholar rather than a businesswoman, who could directly help the poor?

A: I wouldn't be very good at business. To become a businesswoman you have to know how to take risks, to pick the right opportunities, and perhaps you have to know how to deal things in a certain policy environment. I am sure I am not capable of that.

Q: Are you comfortable with your position now?

A: Yes, I like what I am doing because I feel I am contributing to the thinking and public debate about some of the major issues that Indonesia is facing.

Q: What are those issues?

A: I think the issues are how we can continue to develop, how we can become competitive in a much more global and competitive world, and how we can develop human resources to ensure that we can compete. And I think one of the biggest issues that we face, which is the most difficult one to answer, is how we can grow without sacrificing distribution, people's welfare and environmental aspects. How can you achieve quality growth? The favorite jargon term is sustainable growth -- how to ensure good growth while not deviating from distribution, while ensuring poverty is alleviated and while not destroying the environment.

Q: Do you think that our policies support this kind of sustainable growth?

A: Not yet. There are many things to be done. We have a lot of homework to be able to come up with the right kind of policy approach. We have to be realistic that sometimes what is ideal is not practical. So we must also put it into context: resources constraints, capability constraints on implementing policies, and the lack of political will to carry out the policies. These are three very important parameters that you must bear in mind when making policy recommendations.

Q: Could you give us some examples about the kind of policies we need?

A: Let's take the environment as an example. I think people generally recognize that the environment is very important and that we have to take into account environmental degradation. We do have laws protecting the environment and companies have to comply with certain environmentally sustainable practices, but I think we are still a long way from actually realizing the aim of environmentally sustainable policies. There are many issues related to this.

One issue is how you measure the degradation and the cost of the environment on future growth. We have to make a prediction. If you can quantify it, people will pay attention. But it is not always easy to quantify.

Poverty is pegged with environmental degradation, because it is related to the urban poor and rural poor. All of them contribute to the degradation.

Q: There is a wide rich-poor gap. Is there any way to narrow it?

A: If you talk about income distribution as a problem, one way to do it is through taxation. You tax the rich more than you do to the poor. And then you redistribute from the rich to the poor in, say, improving public services, providing low cost housing or education. Other than taxes being imposed on income, one thing you perhaps should think about is wealth tax or taxing assets more. It is actually easier to tax assets than to tax income because they are more visible and concrete, like land and shares in companies. I think what we need to do is have a more progressive taxation system which really tries to get at the rich. The present system still has lots of loopholes. People who should pay taxes are escaping.

I think that is the most neutral way to redistribute income. But you can ask yourself: Why aren't the people paying their taxes? Because they think the government is not efficient in redistributing and using the tax payers' money. So to collect more taxes the government should also be a better government in terms of their commitment to provide better public services.

In developed countries, people are paying taxes because they know the taxes are being used to improve the roads that they drive on and to improve the public education system.

We have a long way to go before we can reach that, but that is the final goal.

The problem is impatience. What I tell you is the ideal solution, but I think the people are very impatient. They want to see results now. That is why you see quick solution like the 2 percent voluntary contribution (of rich to the poor), which was recently stipulated in an executive order -- or whatever it is called. I think it is still debatable. I can't say that it will be a total failure because it has not happened yet, but at the moment people are raising questions as to whether it will really solve the problem.

I think we have to be able to distinguish between policies that are really intended to answer the problem and quick solutions because they might not in the end help the people that we want to help.

Q: It seems we face a quite difficult problem.

A: It is not an easy problem. And you can't expect the government to solve the problem in five years. It is a long term problem, but what we must agree on is the approach, and then work on consistency. The problem is we are sometimes impatient, and impatience has something to do with political pressures to get quick result. We tend to change policies halfway before they have time to really bear fruit. Some policies in certain areas take a long time before you feel the effect.

Q: How long?

A: I don't know how long. But with things like the environment, human resource development and poverty, if you start the policies now you can't really feel the effects until 10 or 20 years down the road.

Q: What are the problems in the government's program to eliminate poverty?

A: You have to have a multi-strategy with poverty. Yes, programs like IDT (which gives loans to the poorest villages) can help, but it is certainly not the whole answer. You have to look at it as a comprehensive approach. You have to look at the objectives. What are the objectives? It is not to eliminate poverty because you can't eliminate poverty. You can't have zero poverty, even countries like America have poverty. Alleviation of poverty is supposedly the right term. They must learn to help themselves. An important instrument is education, If you want to provide them with the means to get out of the situation, then you have to give them some kind of ability through education or training. And then there has to be the opportunity for them to be absorbed into the work force. And that's growth.

Some economists will argue if you have growth, poverty will solve itself. But it is not as simple as that. You do need growth for employment opportunities to be created, but you also need an instrument to help them lift themselves out of the situation. Education and training is one way to do it, apart from giving them subsidies.

Q: You took an active part in the establishment of Aku Wanita (I am a woman), an association of professional women. Will you tell us about it?

A: I guess it was just a group of us, 21 women of different professions who became the organization's founders, who thought that there were certain issues that professional women faced. The basic idea of that organization was really networking. We thought that networking was very important and it would be helpful if you could help each other out. You could share business information or just share problems like how you deal with the dual role (of being a mother and a working woman).

Q: You are also one of the founders of Yayasan Sejati, which was set up in 1992. What is the objective?

A: Yayasan Sejati has a different objective. It is not women related, it is related to the preservation of traditional knowledge. Basically the objective is to bridge the indigenous people's traditional knowledge and the resource management of modern societies. A bridge means that you go both ways. What can the traditional people learn about modern technology and information to help them in their life? And what can the modern people learn about traditional knowledge and traditional wisdom? This could mean that some centralized policies might not be appropriate for particular areas in Indonesia because traditional laws have been in existence much longer than the 50 years of our republic. They have already developed a system of operating which might be better than what the government has decided, like in managing their resources or their economy.

Q: We are only 50 years old, and the New Order government has been in power for 30 years, which is not long. As a new country, Indonesia must boost its economy -- sometimes at the expense of the environment. Is this justified?

A: No, because my children will suffer. I am not willing to let my children pay for the mistakes we make now. It is never too late to start thinking about ways and means that you could achieve the same growth, or maybe a lower growth, but still maintain the sustainability of the environment. Sometimes it can even make you more efficient in your production. You can't always say that taking care of the environment will lower the growth. That's may not be the case. I don't know if the decline of our plywood exports has any relationship to the lack of replanting of our forests. The fact of the manner is that we are experiencing a shortage of raw materials. I don't know the answer because I have not done the research, but we could raise the question: Is it because we did not replant the trees? Forests are a renewable resource. If you manage them right, they should be able to sustain export growth.

Q: Are you saying that there is something wrong with Indonesian forest management?

A: Maybe. That is only one of the questions you can raise. I don't know the answer. That is only one example why it is so important to ensure sustainability, especially for renewable resources. For things like oil, which is not renewable, all you can do is ensure that you deplete it at the optimal rate. But I think it is very important to ensure that the environment is always considered in most, or all, undertaken policies.

Q: It seems to me that you are more than an economist. You are also an environmentalist.

A: I don't think you should put people in boxes, whether one is an economist or an environmentalist. I think economists do look at the environment as part of economic development because you can put a cost on it.

Q: You pursued your education abroad and you lived overseas for quite a long time before you returned to Indonesia. What made you come back?

A: Basically I made a deal with my father. I had lived abroad for 20 years, in Singapore, Australia and the United States. I left Indonesia at nine years old for Singapore because my father taught at the University of Singapore. I was not sure if I could readjust myself to living in Indonesia. My father asked if I would try, come back and stay for two years. I decided to take the challenge just to find if I could actually work and live here.

Q: What did you find?

A: What did I find? Well it was very difficult at the beginning. After being abroad for 20 years, you came back with different values, different ways of approaching things, which is very direct. If you don't understand something you ask questions, if you don't agree you say you don't agree. And also the language problem. I could not speak Indonesian very well at that time, I was speaking English most of the time. My command of the Indonesian language was very bad, and it created difficulties because people thought I was showing off by not speaking Indonesian. Now it is more acceptable if you ask direct questions, but in those days it was considered very rude.

In my first few years I did experience many occasions where I was the only woman. I guess in the beginning it was difficult. But in the end people just accept you because of your merit.

Q: After two years, you decided to stay.

A: Yes.

Q: Was it because you found the right man?

A: Partly. No, it was much later than that. I did not get married until 1991. It is more challenging. If I worked abroad I was only one of the thousands or tens of thousands of qualified people doing economic policies, while here you actually feel that you are making a little bit of difference, maybe not huge, but you feel that you are contributing because there is such a shortage of qualified people.

Q: Many women can't go further with their career because of the glass ceiling. There is something that prevents them from going up. How true it is?

Q: I think it is true. But it differs between sectors and perhaps even companies. I think in the academic environment its not so much a problem because academics by definition are more free thinkers. And I certainly do not face it in the place where I am working now. I don't face any discrimination being a woman here at CSIS, and also at the University of Indonesia and in Prasetya Mulya Management Institute, where I teach.

But the University of Indonesia's Faculty of Economics has been criticized for not having a women professor. I think it might be the only faculty in the university that does not have a professor who is a woman.

Q: Why doesn't it have a female professor?

A: I think it might have dated back to their past policies where they might not have encouraged women to take doctorate degrees, or maybe because it was just a societal change. In the past bright female students might not be able to pursue graduate degrees because they got married.

Q: Do you want to become a professor?

A: You can't say I want to be a professor. You don't intend to be a professor. The university asks you to become a professor. It is by invitation. And to me it is not that important. What is important to me is, what I do, my work. Whether it is through my writing or deliberations in seminars, having some input into the policies and the changes that I believe in. And I also want to have international recognition, that is also an important ingredient in evaluating, as an academic, whether you can get satisfaction from your work.

Q: You mentioned that women can't pursue their education further because of marriage. Why does this happen?

A: It has traditional reasons. I think times are changing. I think in the past 10 years women are probably less constrained by the fact that they have to get married. I think there was a tendency, which I experienced myself when I was going to school, for women to underplay themselves because the thinking was boys didn't like smart women. That was very traditional. That happened in the past. At least by watching my students, I don't see that anymore. I think the women become themselves. They work hard and they want to go to school. Probably 90 percent of the smart women I have come across want to pursue graduate studies or want to work in a good firm. Their objective is a career. But I should qualify that, of course, women should not pursue careers blindly at the expense of everything else. A happy life means a bit of everything. You have to be able to balance your personal life and your health and your career.

Q: Is that why you got married?

A: No, in my own case I didn't plan to get married. I got married because I found the right person I felt I could share my life, my beliefs, my ideas. I don't think I would get married for the sake of getting married. Because everybody gets married and you want to get married, I think that is the wrong reason.

Q: Do you have any problem being a mother and a working woman?

A: Sure, we have to be honest with ourselves that there is no kind of superwoman. It is hard. We always try to balance between our family and our job. Inevitably both suffer somewhat. I just hope that it does not cause serious damage. We do have the balance and we should have priorities. If your child is sick, than he is your priority even though you have a deadline.

Q: In this case, what is the role of the husband?

A: To be very honest, I have a very good husband who shares with all the responsibilities with me, and he even takes care of the children very well. I go abroad quite a lot and he is willing to take care of the children when I go overseas. But there are certain things that I have to take care of that he somehow doesn't pay attention to, like making sure the school fees are paid, checking on the children's progress in school and talking to the teachers at school. I'm sure my husband could do it, but it is something that isn't instinctive for him.

Q: You need a supportive husband if you want to pursue your career.

A: Having a supportive husband is maybe 80 percent of the success of being able to have a career and a family because if you don't have the support of your husband that will be very, very stressful and take away your energy. The other 20 percent comes from living in Indonesia or Asia. There are lots of things you can do here that you couldn't living in the U.S. It is more affordable for you to have a household helper and driver. And you also have an extended family, which helps a lot for a woman who wants to pursue career. In my case, my mother always helps us take care of the children.

Q: How true is it that traditional values push women to work at home?

A: Once again it depends on the level and the age. Maybe at the unskilled workers' level and in rural areas, poor women work outside the house because of economic reasons.

The older generation might believe in those traditional values. But I think it is changing. Younger women tend not to be constrained by traditional values. And you must also consider the fact that sometimes a large part of women's work is to be able to provide education for the children and to live.

I think it is nonsense if you say dual role is only for women. If you work you have to balance between being a mother and a working women. I always ask the question: Don't men have the same issue? He has to be a husband and a father, too. So the dual role is not just a women's issue, it's not a gender issue, it should apply to both men and women.

I think younger men are more supportive and more willing to chip in to raise the children and taking care of the household. There have been studies on this. I read the result of one of the studies and the finding was more than 50 percent of men support women having careers as long as they are not their wives. When it's their own wives who work, the percentage dropped to 25 percent or something. I think it is an issue that needs to be discussed more.

Q: What can we do to improve things?

A: I guess it is education and public awareness. The women themselves have to be firm at the beginning. You have to decide these things before you get married. And I think the employers also play a role. Some employers don't support married women having children.

Q: Do you think that these gender-bias problems happen because we live in a male-dominated society?

A: Yes, of course. The decision makers are male.

Q: Can I call you a feminist?

A: No. Well, it depends on what you mean by feminist.

Q: What is your definition of feminism?

A: Well, I am not a feminist in the militant sense.

Q: It seems to me that you have a negative connotation with the word feminism.

A: Probably. That is probably is my narrow mindedness.

Q: Are you afraid that if you call yourself a feminist then people will think that you are an angry woman or a man-hater?

A: Maybe, yes. That can give a wrong impression.

I am not sure whether I am a feminist or not, but I do believe in equal rights and equal performance. I don't believe in affirmative action, which what you are doing is recognizing that women is somehow weaker than men for one reason and another, and that you have to give them special privileges, like quotas. Some developed governments offer scholarships and put a quota for women. Fifty percent of the scholarship must go to women. I don't believe in that. In America they have affirmative action where you are supposed to hire women. I don't like that kind of policy. I prefer gender neutral policies. I think women should be hired because of their merit. But of course if they are discriminated against, if men are paid more for the same job, that I would fight for because that is not fair.

Q: With ideas like that, you are certainly a kind of feminist.

A: It depends on how you define a feminist. But this is actually not a women's or a men's issue, it is a human rights issue. I also don't believe in affirmative action for minorities, like in America you should give a job to certain people because they are Mexicans or Blacks.