JakartaPost-Aug 13, 2026
Inequality in Indonesia has multiplied over the past three decades, a situation mirrored across many resource-dependent Global South countries, with the solution being an inclusive economic growth rather than excessive state intervention, according to academics. More than 220 scholars from at least 20 countries gathered for the three-day 2026 Institute for Advanced Research (IFAR) Consortium Conference hosted by the Indonesian International Islamic University in Depok, West Java. Aiming to examine the current landscape of inequality across Southeast Asia, many scholars pointed to the widening socioeconomic gap in Indonesia, where wealth is increasingly concentrated in a small web of politically-wired individuals. In countries such as Indonesia, economic growth often came at the expense of shrinking share of labor wages in the national economy, according to sociology professor Vivek Chibber of New York University in the United States. “Since the 1980s, what policy shifts occurred have overwhelmingly favored the wealthy as against the general population, especially the working population [or] labor in countries like Indonesia,” Chibber said in his keynote address on Wednesday. Income inequality can be seen in the measurement of the country’s Gini coefficient as deduced in reports issued by the Statistics Indonesia (BPS). A coefficient of zero represents perfect equality, while one captures a complete unequal condition. But the coefficient, which was included in BPS’ biannual National Socioeconomic Survey (Susenas) report, has not been able to explain the whole spectrum of wealth and income inequality in the country, according to Pierre van der Eng, an associate professor at Australian National University. He drew from his past study calculating the relative concentration of Indonesian billionaires’ wealth to the gross domestic product (GDP), using multiple wealth data listings, including those published by Forbes magazine and others. After analyzing the data, van der Eng found that between 2010 and 2025, concentration increased mimicking that recorded in the 1990s, when Indonesia was still under the authoritarian rule of late president Soeharto. Read more at:
