What Is Not Inherited by the Younger Generation
When writing this, I had just graduated from university as an ordinary fresh graduate. I finally experienced firsthand what I had only imagined during my studies: the difficulty of finding a livelihood. This condition is actually fully realised, especially by students whose chances of working in prestigious places are slim without the help of connections. My complaint does not stem from just one example.
According to Statistics Indonesia (BPS) data as of May 2026, there are around 1.03 million graduates contributing to 14.31 percent of the total national unemployment rate, not a small figure for a minority group that has experienced higher education. This complaint continues to a further realisation: if graduates struggle to find work, what about those who could not even afford to reach higher education?
The thinning of job opportunities and the proliferation of the unemployed are just one of thousands of problems awaiting the younger generation. We will see various legacies of problems left behind as far as the eye can see.
Ironically, such questions are often forgotten in discussions about the young generation who are said to inherit the future. The difficulties that my generation and I experience are usually wrapped in a sentence that sounds solid: the younger generation inherits nothing, they lose the race before it even starts, they lose the ladder that was once available to our parents. This sentence is easy to say because it feels representative, and even easier because it frees one from the obligation to ask further: which young generation, inheriting from whom, losing what compared to whom.
Indeed, young people are not completely empty-handed. Those born into the right families inherit much more. Wealth, savings, networks, positions that do not need to be fought for from scratch, all stop at the doors of those blessed with excess fortune.
What actually reaches everyone without being asked is the deficit: an already damaged environment, laws that can be bent at will for the interests of groups or elites, politics that are continually reproduced through bloodlines and kinship. This second type of inheritance is never recorded as an inheritance because it is not an asset. It exists as a social burden borne by the majority of the younger generation.
The house price-to-income ratio in Indonesia reached 18.5, far above the global average of 11.2, according to the UN-Habitat World Cities Report 2026, which placed Indonesia at 166th out of 181 countries. This is equivalent to 18.5 years of full income without a single rupiah set aside for other needs, just to buy a median-priced house.
The national house price growth rate actually slowed to its lowest point since records began in 2003, at just 0.62 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2026. This was not because houses became affordable, but because fewer people could afford to buy them. Gold, the simplest store of value instrument for the middle class, broke its all-time trading record at 5,589.38 US dollars per ounce on 28 January 2026, moving into territory that only makes sense for those who have already parked large amounts of capital for investment. Ultimately, the gold market is again dominated by a small group of people. In the job market, the Indonesian Employers Association (Apindo) recorded 126,000 workers affected by layoffs from January to May 2026, five times the official figure from the Ministry of Manpower which only recorded 23,300 cases. This gap shows that the state does not yet fully understand the depth of the situation on the ground.
The Constitutional Court Decision Number 90/PUU-XXI/2023, which changed the age requirements for presidential and vice-presidential candidates and paved the way for the nomination of Gibran Rakabuming Raka, then 36 years old, as a vice-presidential candidate, only thickened the veil of inequality for the generation seeking equal opportunities in politics. The decision was gavelled by Anwar Usman, who is none other than Gibran’s uncle and the brother-in-law of then-President Joko Widodo. The Constitutional Court’s Honorary Council later found Anwar Usman guilty of a serious violation of the code of ethics and conduct of constitutional judges and removed him from his position as Chief Justice. However, the Honorary Council refused to assess, let alone annul, Decision 90/2023 itself.
The violator was punished, but the result of the violation remains valid. That is the most naked definition of inherited law, like the proverb: ‘Like a whittling knife: you can straighten someone else’s bent, but you cannot straighten your own.’ In line with this, Indonesia’s Corruption Perception Index score in 2025 dropped three points to 34, while its ranking plummeted ten levels from 99th to 109th out of 180 countries, according to Transparency International Indonesia. Equality before the law and equality of opportunity are legacies that have failed to be passed on to the younger generation.
This same legacy flows freely in the political arena, renewed every five years through kinship ties. Research by Litbang Kompas noted that 285 members of the legislative body for the 2024-2029 period, or 38.9 percent, are indicated to have kinship relations with public officials or national political figures. In the 2024 Regional Elections, Indonesia Corruption Watch found a similar pattern: 155 out of 582 candidates for regional head and deputy regional head, or 26.4 percent, were affiliated with political dynasties.
Children of officials who get positions without queuing, children of tycoons who inherit land as well as business networks, are not exceptions to this crisis. Their existence actually explains the mechanism: seats that should be open through competition have been inherited through bloodlines before the competition could even begin.
The Sumatra floods show clearly what will be inherited by the younger generation. Our damaged nature seems to signal a fate line.