Armut in Indonesien. Eine Wende in der Entwicklungspolitik?

Abstract Indonesia has been widely acclaimed as the developing country with the most successful poverty alleviation policy. Using data from social surveys, census publications and other official sources the regional and sectoral decline of poverty since the 1960s is analysed. A closer look at the labour market including informal sector employment and household expenditure patterns reveals that access to wage labour and subsistence production play a major role in explaining the course of poverty decline. It is argued that development policy measures directly aimed at reducing poverty were less successful than the unintended consequences of other programmes like the expansion of the government bureaucracy or investment in primary education. Though poverty has been reduced, pockets of poverty in Eastern Indonesia remain and a new urban-industrial poverty is on the rise.