Trade, employment and horizontal inequalities in new order Indonesia

This article explores the extent to which trade might impact horizontal inequalities in Indonesia by focusing on a district-level cross-sectional analysis of the relationship between different export sectors and the extent of horizontal inequalities across three dimensions. Although the causal directionality is unclear, there is significant evidence of correlations between particular industries and particular dimensions of horizontal inequality. There is no single industry that is consistently correlated with horizontal inequalities across all dimensions, however; neither are the results consistent across urban and rural districts. The conclusion that we can draw from this is that although the export structure of the Indonesian economy does appear to have influenced horizontal inequalities this has largely been located within a very particular and localized political economy of migration and ethno-religious identities. It is not so much that trade has favoured particular groups bestowed with higher endowments of education or other resources.