|
People
Demography
Indonesia is home of one the world's largest national populations with more than 231 million people. The island of Java is one of the most densely populated areas in the world, with more than 107 million people living in an area the size of New York state in the United States.
Cultural Diversity
Indonesia is composed of numerous related but distinct cultural and linguistic groups. The ethnic groups tend to be derived from the Malay ethnolinguistic groupings, including the Javanese, which make up almost half the population, as well as Sundanese, Madurese and coastal Malays, among others. A substantial minority of European and North American expatriates are also living in Indonesia, along with some people of Dutch extraction who are descendants of the colonists.
Since independence, the national language, called Indonesian - a form of Bahasa Malaysian - has spread throughout the country and become the language for most written communication, education, government and business. Many local languages remain important in several areas, the most significant of which is Javanese. While English and Dutch are two non-native languages also used in Indonesia, English is the most widely spoken foreign language.
Religious freedom is guaranteed by the constitution, applying to the five religions recognized by the state, namely Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Buddhism and Hinduism. Islam is the most widely followed. In some remote areas, animism is also practiced.
Human Development
In terms of health and welfare, 2.8 percent of GDP in this country is spent on education; 5.5 percent of GDP is spent on health expenditures. Generally, access to water in this country is good in urban areas although more problematic in certain rural areas. Access to sanitation is more of a challenge, especially in rural areas.
Education is free and compulsory for children between the ages of six and 12. Although about 92 percent of eligible children are enrolled in primary school, a much smaller percentage attend full time. About 44 percent of secondary school-age children attend junior high school, and some others of this age group attend vocational schools. The population of Indonesia has a healthy life expectancy at birth of 68.9 years - 66.5 for men and 71.5 for women, according to recent estimates. Healthy life expectancy is based on an indicator developed by the World Health Organization called the Disability Adjusted Life Expectancy. To calculate DALE, the years of ill health are weighted according to severity and subtracted from the expected overall life expectancy to give the equivalent years of healthy life. Another calculation by the World Factbook notes that the average life expectancy is 70.46 years -- 67.98 years for men and 73.07 years for women. Meanwhile, Indonesia's infant mortality rate is 31.04 deaths per 1,000 live births. In terms of literacy, at the start of the decade, 84.1 percent of the female population and 92.9 percent of the male population aged 15 and over could read and write. In recent years, the literacy rate has increased to 90.4 percent for the total population -- 86.8 percent among women and 94 percent among men. Another notable measure of human development is the Human Development Index (HDI), which is formulated by the United Nations Development Program. The HDI is a composite of several indicators, which measure a country's achievements in three main arenas of human development: longevity, knowledge and education, as well as economic standard of living. In a recent ranking of 169 countries and territories, the HDI places Indonesia in the medium human development category, at 108th place. Note: Although the concept of human development is complicated and cannot be properly captured by values and indices, the HDI, which is calculated and updated annually, offers a wide-ranging assessment of human development in certain countries, not based solely upon traditional economic and financial indicators. Written by Dr. Denise Youngblood Coleman, Editor in Chief, www.countrywatch.com . See Bibliography for list of research sources.
|