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.