Youth idleness in Indonesia

Abstract

This study is concerned with the issue of youth idleness in Indonesia. Soaring idleness at a younger age has a serious impact on economic and social aspects, which have been discussed in various literatures recently. A limited research available on it is in the context of Indonesia. In this paper, we assess models on the probability of youth as potential job seekers denoted as unemployment as well as passive job seekers, called as ‘idle’ youth, and try to understand contributing factors to explain both youth idleness evidences. By analyzing data from 2012 Indonesia National Socioeconomic Survey Data (SUSENAS), this study observes important results of increasing idleness among middle and upper groups of households. Our data shows youth idleness is not always associated with poverty and lower economic status. We discuss the implication of this study.