NUSANTARA

PAPERS
No. 3

Social Mobility and Social Change in Yogyakarta 1945 to 1995

Hans-Dieter Evers and Solvay Gerke

Abstract

Two basic processes were central to the social changes in Yogyakarta; the demise of the Javanese
nobility and the shift from priyayi to pegawai, i.e. the rather complicated process whereby the
traditional courtiers were replaced by or transformed into civil servants employed by the provincial
or the central government. In fact the latter process has captured the imagination of several scholars
after Selosoemardjans major study Social Changes in Yogyakarta. The following basic question
was asked: Was the old priyayi elite replaced by modern civil servants of Weberian persuasion or
did the new civil servants permute into neo-priyayi by taking over the cultural values and
behaviour patterns of their predecessors? An intensive social survey in Yogyakarta provided data to
answer these questions.

______________________________________________________________________________
ISSN

Bonn: Nusantara Academic Publications

 Social Mobility and Social Change in Yogyakarta 1945 to 1995i

Hans-Dieter Evers and Solvay Gerke

Introduction: Revisiting Social Changes in Yogyakarta

Some 50 years ago the eminent Indonesian social scientist Professor Selosoemardjan
published his doctoral thesis on Social Changes in Yogyakarta (Selosoemardjan
1962). In addition to historical flashbacks to the Dutch and pre-colonial periods he
provides a vivid picture of the social changes occuring in Yogyakarta during his field
research in 1958. The Sultan of Yogyakarta, it will be remembered, had sided with the
republican forces during the Indonesian revolt against Dutch colonial rule and was
conseqently rewarded with the governership of the Special Region of Yogyakarta. Many
features of the Javanese principality survived the turbulent years of the Japanese
occupation, the short period as the capital of the Republic of Indonesia, and the final
integration into the adminsitrative structure of the new republic under President
Sukarnos leadership. The 1950s were, however, a time of rapid social change, which
Professor Selosoemarjan investigated.

Two basic processes were central to the social changes in Yogyakarta; the demise of the
Javanese nobility and the shift from priyayi to pegawai, i.e. the rather complicated
process whereby the traditional courtiers were replaced by or transformed into civil
servants employed by the provincial or the central government. In fact the latter process
has captured the imagination of several scholars after Selosoemardjan (Sutherland 1979,
Palmier 1969, Benda 1965, Evers 1987). The following basic question was asked: Was
the old priyayi elite replaced by modern civil servants of Weberian persuasion or did
the new civil servants permute into neo-priyayi by taking over the cultural values and
behaviour patterns of their predecessors?

Most authors favour the latter position by pointing to the centralised structure of the
Indonesian administration, the culture of bapakism (father knows best), the top
down approach of the bureaucracy, the prevalence of Javanese in top positions and the
generally typical Javanese way of running the administration.
The following paper will contribute to this debate by presenting some of the findings of our studies
on social mobility in Yogyakarta. By using data on intergenerational mobility, that is the change of
social status between parents and children, we will endeavor to draw some conclusions on the
nature of social changes in Yogyakarta between the demise of colonial rule and the rise of General
Suhartos New Order administration.

Social Changes after Merdeka

The Decline of the Nobility and the Rise of the Educated Middle Class

Traditionally Javanese society was divided into three classes, the nobility, the bureaucracy (priyayi)
and commoners (wong cilik or little people). Selosoemardjan analyses the changes that have taken
place in Yogyakarta during the 1950s, when this traditional order began to crumble, including the
above mentioned two important social changes, namely the decline of the nobility and the change of
the civil servants from priyayi to pegawai negri (government official).

As the nobility lost its function as intermediary between the Sultan and his bureaucracy and the
Sultan and the people, its prestige declined, particularly in the city, where the intelligentia and the
new group of pegawai negri were moving upward in the social hierarchy (Selosoemardjan
1962:121). After the revolution the allowances of the nobility were not raised and were quickly
eroded by rising rates of inflation, leading to their further decline in status and political importanceii.

The formation of a new middle class was intimately connected with the growth of the civil service.
The new middle class which grew up under Dutch aegis occupied a place parallel to that of the
priyayi class. The members were Indonesians, for the greater part Javanese, who worked as officials
in the Dutch administration in Jogjakarta and were thus the colleagues of the priyayis. Most
members of this new class had either primary or high school education (Selosoemardjan 1962:37).
The intelligentia usually emerged from priyayi circles (Sutherland 1979:56), but had divorced
itself from its cultural heritage and the feudal civil service (Pangreh Praja).

According to Selosoemardjan this educated class replaced the nobility, and took over the
leadership of new political and social institutions. The rise of the intelligentia to the upper class
was recognized by other classes, which tried to acquire the external symbols of this new class by
wearing Western-style dress and walking around with a dispatch case in one hand and a fountain
pen showing in the upper pocket of the jacket. But by far the most distinguishing symbol of the new
upper class was the use of foreign languages, namely Dutch or English (Selosoemardjan
1962:129). This process can be described as upward social mobility of members of the middle class
and downward mobility of the aristocracy.

Priyayi and Pegawai

Less clearcut is the situation of the traditional bureaucracy of the Sultanate of Yogyakarta. Priyayi
or abdidalem were the officers running the administration of the Sultanat of Yogyakarta before and
during the colonial times, when Yogyakarta was one of the semi-autonomous princely states. The
priyayi were officials recruited from the class of commonersiii. The function was to carry out the
Sultans orders which came to them through the nobility (Selosoemardjan 1962:21). The prestige
of priyayi was enhanced by imitating the patterns of behaviour of the nobility. Official names were
given by the Sultan to replace their original names at the moment they entered the Sultans
service (Selosoemardjan 1962:22). From 1952 to 1958 the Sultan still granted 12 first-class and 25
second-class titles to officials. There were still 148 priyayi officials with titles by the end of 1958
(Selosoemardjan 1962:121). This practice continues inofficially up to now. In Central Java the
granting of titles to provincial civil servants (bupati) by the Susuhanan of Solo created a stir in
1992, when the Governor of the Province requested that these titles be returned. In Yogyakarta even
up to now strong loyalties of the civil service towards the Sultan remained (Selosoemardjan
1962:162).

After independence the new government increased the number of civil servants. This policy was in
line with the high social value of government jobs, that was carried over from the Dutch colonial
period (Selosoemardjan 1962:106). This also holds true for DI Yogyakarta, were government
officials were employed at an accelerated rate after 1950.

In 1943, under the Japanese administration, there were aproximately 1,500 government employess,
in 1953 about 8,300 and some 10,000 in 1958. In additon, there were 3,600 officials of the central
government and 4,300 government employed daily rated workers, which brought the number of
govenment employees to 17,900 or 8.9 per 1000 populationiv (Selosoemardjan 1962:108), a figure
considerably higher than the national average of about 4 at that time (Evers 1987). Furthermore
there were village heads and their assistants and military personell, which have added to the
government establishment. As a consequence Selosoemarjan estimates, that one person out of every
60 residents was employed and paid by the government. In the city of Yogyakarta this proportion
would have been much higher due to the concentration of government servants in urban areas. Entry
into the civil service was therefor a major avenue of upward social mobility.

Selosoemardjans analysis is important, as it can be taken as paradigmatic for the situation of post-
colonial Java, if not Indonesia, as a whole. The new intelligentia, roughly corresponding to a new
middle class, adopts a Western life-style and engages in politics, whereas the new bureaucracy
patterns its behaviour on that of the traditional priyayi court officials. Cultural and social mobility,
i.e. the transmission of life-styles and cultural values on one hand and social mobility, i.e. change of
social status and the movement of young people into new social positions do not necessarily
correspondv.

As many other social scientists Selosoemarjan would probably have projected his findings into the
future. In doing so he could not forsee the importance still attached to the Javanese nobility at the
courts of Yogyakarta, including Paku Alaman, and Solo right up to the present time; nor could he
judge at the time of his writing whether social changes and social mobility in Yogyakarta in the
1950s were normal, abnomally high or relatively insignificant in comparison with the times
ahead. The theorists of modernisation and globalisation have anyhow constructed an image of
accelerated change in contrast to a stabel traditional past. In line with this thinking growth and
change appear to be natural, withdrawal from the path of globalisation unlikely and retardatin
or cultural revival mere abbarations.

It will, therefore, be interesting to see how the 1950s fit into the course of Indonesian history from
the point-of-view of social mobility and social transformationvi. Some data from our recent surveys
in the 1990s, limited as they may be, could serve this purpose. They will allow us to test
Selosoemardjans assertion of high social mobility and change during the 1950s and compare the
post-independence situation with later periods of Indonesian history up to the present.

Changes of Inter-generational Mobility

Social Mobility and Social Change

As Selosoemardjan has shown, the study of social mobility is a useful tool to describe the dynamics
of change in a society. The demise of pre-colonial and colonial status hierarchies, as analysed by
Selosoemardjan and the more recent transformation from a predominantly agrarian to a modernising
and industrialising society with high economic growth rates lead us to expect high rates of social
mobility as well. Whether this assumption is true or not remains to be seen, but in any case we
propose to use rates of social mobility as an indicator for social changes much the same as
economic growth rates are often interpreted as measurement of economic change - with all the
caveats attached to the use of such indicators.

The following analysis is based on a survey, conducted in the city of Yogyakarta ("Yogya ESM
Survey")vii. Interviews in three sample areas in the old quarters of the kraton (Sultan's palace), a
densely settled inner-city slum and a semi-rural area on the urban fringe yielded data on 811
persons, related to 171 randomly selected respondents. A further sub-sample of government officials
yielded more detailed data on that group. These studies are occasionally supplemented by data from
our other studies in Central Java ("IST Survey")viii and West Sumatra ("Padang ESM Survey")ix.

The target group of the Yogyakarta survey were salaried employees of the private and public
sectors, i.e. more or less the same strata or classes discussed by Selosoemardjan in his 1958 study.
As our earlier analysis has shown (Evers 1994) this group has grown throughout Indonesia and
gained in relative importance since about 1980. This holds true even more so for urban DI
Yogyakarta, where in 1990 more than half (52%) of the working population belonged to the formal
sector of the economy.

Table 1
The Growth of Formal Employment, Indonesia 1980-1990

Year Employers and Employees as Percentage of

Total Employment
Rural U
1980 19.22 1
1990 19.69 1
Source: Population Census 1980, 1990

In order to gain a more dynamic perspective on this transformation we focused our attention on this
group, which has been neglected in studies on Indonesian society. The following data and
conclusions refer therefore to wage earners in both the private and the public sector. For this paper
we used an age-cohort analysis, i.e. we compared the intergenerational mobility rates of six age
groups at the time they were likely to have entered the labour market. The age-cohorts are built on
the assumption that during the ages 16 to 25 mobility chances are most likely to be realisedx. We
have therefore taken this age group as the cohort on which our analysis is built. The occupational
status and educational attainment is then compared with those of their parents, yielding a rough
measurement of inter-generational mobility. Furthermore we analysed selected life-histories to
corrobate the statistical analysis.

Changing Patterns of Social Mobility

The periods, during which our study groups have entered the labour market and experienced social
mobility are divided into significant periods in Indonesian history. The colonial period came to an
end with the proclamation of independence in August 1945; during the late 1950s the economic ties
with the Netherlands were severed and the period of 'guided democracy' and a highly regulated
economy began; in 1965-67 the authoritarian 'New Order Government' was established under
military leadership and economic reforms introduced; by the mid-1970s the re-integration into the
world market was vigorously pursued and the first deregulation measures were introduced; the later
1980s and early 1990s showed high rates of economic growth, occasional world-market induced
economic shocks, slow political liberalisation and increasing rates of unemployment (Evers 1995).
The analysis of our survey data shows very diverse patterns of social stability and fluidity. Stability
is measured by the percentage of the sample population that has not experienced any
intergenerational change of social status. Fluidity is measured by the percentage of persons showing
a either upward or downward intergenerational mobility (see figure 1).

Basically social fluidity was high during the post-independence Sukarno period and declined
considerably during the 1980s and 90s.
Figure 1
Male Social Mobility, Indonesia before 1945 to 1993

Source: Yogya ESM Survey 1993, see table 2

Upward social mobility reached its peak during 1956-65 and has since then steadily declined. In
general our findings can be interpreted in the light of Indonesian political history. First of all
Selosoemardjans data on social changes and high mobility during the late 1950s are clearly
confirmed. The late phase of the otherwise economically disastrous Sukarno area opened
opportunities for the "small people" to advance their status. The government service and with it the
new middle class expanded and opened up opportunities for upward social mobility, both for men
and women.

In contrast the economically successful period after the military take-over in 1965-67 lead to rising
incomes, but also a decline of upward social mobility. An increasing proportion of the sample
population did not experience any mobility at all, i.e. they inherited the social status from their
parents.
Table 2
Intergenerational Mobility by Sex, before 1945 to 1993

Male Female
down none down none
1945 and 15.1 73.6 34.8 56.5
before
1946-55 23.5 58.8 26.3 71.1
1956-65 10.3 57.5 15.5 70.7
1966-75 18.5 63.1 26.9 61.4
1976-85 22.1 62.3 8.1 82.8
1986 and later 5.7 91.4 10.8 86.5
Total 17.2 64.6 18.0 73.0

Source: Yogya ESM Survey, n=811 (males=478,females=333)

Out of 85 intensive case studies we take Pak Sugeng as a typical example of that group. He was
born in Yogya in 1964 with a father working in the Regional Planning Department. His grandfather
and all great grandfathers were serving as abdi dalem in the kraton of Yogyakarta. His father is still
doing service as abdi dalem (court official) for the sultan. He himself is working in the same
regional planning department as his father, but in another section, being introduced and promoted
by his uncle who is a high office holder at the Kabupaten. His two elder brothers are civil servants
as well, working in different departments in Jakarta. His younger sister is a civil servant in the trade
department in Solo, the same place where his father in law is the head of the trade division. Sugeng
is married to Siti Romlah, a civil servant herself, with a father still working as the head of the trade
department in Solo. Her older brother is also working as civil servant in the trade department in in
Semarang. Her fathers father who is a pensionier was office holder at the Kabupaten. Her
grandfather was working in the Dutch administration, whereas her grandfathers brother was abdi
dalem in the Kraton of Solo.
Diagram 1
Social Mobility of a Javanese Family
Darmo (?) =? Sugeng (?) =?
Abdi Dalem (court Dutch civil service
official) (brother was Abdi
Dalem in Solo)
Yako (1919) = Rukia Wasan (1924) =?
Abdi Dalem (court (father was Dutch civil regency office (bupati)
official) servant)
Darmo (1940) = Sutia Rosdianto (1938) = Yani (?)
regional planning primary school teacher head, department of
agency (government service) trade in Solo
(abdi dalem)
Sugeng (1964) = Siti Romlah
regional planning civil servant (BPN)
agency (BAPPEDA)
(1.brother,public
works department; 2.
brother, national oil
company; sister,
department of trade in
Solo)
Source: sub-sample government officials, EMS Survey

Downward Mobility

The most remarkable finding of our study concerns the remarkably high degree of downward social
mobility in certain periods of Indonesian history. Except for the period before the end of the
Sukarno Aera 1956-1965, where male upward mobility in the 16-25 age group was exceptionally
high, downward social mobility was usually experienced by more persons than upward mobility. On
the other hand a large section of the population remained stable, experiencing neither upward nor
downward mobility. This is connected with relatively low rates of urbanisation until the 1980s,
when urbanisation accelerated.

The Decline of Mobility and Strategic Group Formation

To secure regular employment with the government has been the most commonly expressed
aspiration for the average Indonesian. To provide access to a civil service position has also been a
major source of patronage and a means to gain approval and support for government policies. As a
consequence the Indonesian bureaucracy has expanded considerably over the past decades (Evers
1987, 1994).
The importance of waged or salaried employment by the government cannot be overestimated.
Though the importance of government employment has certainly increased, mobility into this group
from non-civil service families has become difficult. Most urbanised villages (kelurahan) are now
administered by civil servants. Central and provincial government departments have established
branch offices at the sub-district (kecamatan) and district (kabupaten) level. Primary and secondary
schools and teachers are found even in remote areas and health services, infrastructure programmes
and a multitude of government run or sponsored projects employ government servants or create
employment through the disbursement of project funds (Evers 1995). The programme of
decentralisation, started in 1994, will probably further increase the number of officials and enhance
their power on the local level. Government officials are, even in rural areas, a growing class of
salaried officials with a distinct life-style and consumption pattern (Gerke 1992:192-86).
Table 3
Government Employees (Thousand and per 1000 population), Indonesia 1920-1990

Year Thousand Government

government employees
employees per 1000
population
1920 81.5 1.6
1930 111.0 1.8
1940 82.0 1.1
1950 303.5 3.7
1960 393.0 4.1
1970 515.0 4.4
1980 2,047.0 13.9
1990 3,771.2 21.0

Source: Evers 1987, updated by using census and other official data.

Whereas one of the most important avenues of upward social mobility since independence must
have been the procurement of a civil service position, over the years this avenue has, however,
become narrower and narrower, as the bureaucracy has increasingly recruited new members from
the descendants of bureaucrats' families. Currently occupational inheritance is high. 43.1% of all
civil servants have fathers, who have also served the government. Only 3.4% of their grandfathers
were civil servants, but 34.5% belonged to the group of traditional office holders (priyayi). This is
clear evidence for the continuity between the premodern, feudal administration and the modern state
bureaucracy. The term neo-priyayi, used often to describe Yogyakarta bureaucrats, is therefore
justified not only as a description of attitudes and behaviour patterns, but also in terms of social
origin and background. It is in Bourdieus term a truely bureaucratic habitus.

As observed by Selosoemardjan during his field research in 1958, the prestige of the traditional
priyayi bureacracy declined together with the declining power of the nobility that had been their
cultural reference group (Selosoemardjan 1962:121). Education rather than descent became
important. Our data show, however, that by matching inherited status with education, the priyayi
class became integrated into the strategic group of the pegawai negri. (Evers and Schiel 1992).

Table 4
Mobility Rates and Percentage of Government Employment in Age Cohorts, Survey Data
before 1945 to 1993

Age Cohorts: Year Entered Government Servants as Upward

Employment (age 16 to 25) percent of Age Cohort Mobility
Rate (m)
1945 and before 29.3 11.3
1946-1955 26.4 17.7
1956-1965 42.9 32.2
1965-1975 25.8 18.5
1976-1985 25.2 15.6
1986 and later 48.9 2.9
Total 31.7 18.2
n=1096

Up to 1985 the rate of upward social mobility positively correlates with the percentage of
government employment in different age groups. In other words, mobility rates went up when more
positions became available for civil servants. After 1985 the situation has, however, changed. Civil
service employment rates are up, but mobility is declining. One likely explanation is, that the civil
service has become an almost caste-like socially closed strategic group (Evers and Schiel 1992)
with a high degree of self-recruitment despite rising numbers of government employees.

Similar processes of closure of strategic groups may be found elsewhere in Indonesian society. We
will, however, leave strategic group analysis and turn to a more general analysis of the formation of
a new middle class.
The Formation of a New Middle Class

Rising Incomes and Changing Consumption Patterns

Average incomes in Indonesia have risen steadily during the past decade, bringing about new
patterns of consumption. Bicycles are replaced by motor bikes, television sets and parabola
antennas are found in the remotest villages and newly constructed houses are embellished with
Greek columns, double or triple roofs and equipped with modern, factory made furniture. Families
enjoy a night out at the Pizza Hut or Kentucky Fried Chicken, shop in a department store instead at
the neighbourhood toko and enjoy American films at one of the many new cinemas. In short, middle
class consumption patterns are visible every where and catch the eye more than the occasional
Mercedes car or the villas of the upper class 'nouveau riche' hidden among the hills surrounding the
big cities of Java.

Whereas during the 1970s the middle class was still judged to be "relatively few in number"
(Crouch 1984), its size has apparently grown rapidly in recent years. Exact figures are, of course,
not available and estimates depend very much on the definition of the term "middle class".

Defining the new Middle Class

Though there has been quite some debate about the rise of a new middle class in Indonesia,
commentators and researchers have so far failed to define its membership. Our recent surveys give
at least some indication on features of this new group in two typical Indonesian cities (Evers and
Gerke 1993). The data for Yogyakarta are shown in the following table.
Table 5
Distribution of Middle Class* Occupations in percent. Yogyakarta

Occupation %
Labourer 12.3
Employee 29.2
Gvt. officials 58.4
Middle Class
as % of total
38.5
n=169, wage earners only.

* Members of the "middle class" that day earned between Rp. 5,000 and Rp. 20.0000 per day and
have completed high school (Gerke 1994).

To be on the safe side, we first look at the middle income group in Indonesian society. Our
Yogyakarta data show a distinct group of people with an average per capita daily wage of between
Rp.5,000 and Rp. 20,000. Following the self-definition or the social construction of reality we have
counted only those with high educational attainment (high school or university graduates) as
members of the middle class. The ideology that education, personal engagement and responsibility
for the own future is the key to economic success has lead to very high school attendance rates
beyond primary school education" (Gerke 1993:5; Gerke 1992:72-76). The rapid expansion of
secondary education during the past two decades has certainly contributed a lot to the growth of a
middle class and the spread middle class values.

Another useful measure of a middle strata in terms of consumption is provided by data on the
expenditure for food as percentage of total monthly household expenditure (Engel's curve). In
Yogyakarta we can clearly separate two groups, namely those more than 50% food expenditure
(Lower strata) and with 30 to 50% food expenditure (middle strata)xi. But to be a member of the
middle class is not just a matter of levels of income, expenditure and education, it is also defined by
social behaviour. The privatisation of consumption is one aspect as well as the growing refusal to
share consumer goods with others. One of the clearly visible symbols of the growth of a middle
class is the rising number of middle class housing estates (perumahan) which are now spreading in
every Indonesian city. The social pressure to share is one reason that make middle class families
move out of the kampung into housing estates shared by people with the same living standard who
enjoy privacy and avoid too much contact with their neighbourhood.
The new middle class, united by a particular life-style and consumption patterns is mainly made up
of civil servants. 85.3% of the government employees in our sample fall into the middle strata of
society. Or looking at the situation from the other side, 62.8% of the middle class (all generations)
consists of government servants. These in turn are politically organised by GOLKAR, an
organisation not necessarily known for its leanings towards liberal democracy.

This so-called new middle class of mainly civil servants and the intelligentsia did not emerge out
of a growing rationalization and differentiation process but is created through government policies.
As a result of the rapid expansion of the bureaucracy and the educational system the largest group
inside the Indonesian middle class are civil servants who represent a distinct group within this class.
They are a state-caste with a high degree of occupational inheritance, they share a decidedly non-
political outlook and exhibit a strong aspiration to secure their position.

On the other hand most of the 3251 NGOs, said to be in existence in 1989, are organised by a
middle class leadership (Sinaga 1993). To expect a push towards democratisation from the middle
class misreads the social composition and political culture of this growing stratum of Indonesian
society, dominated by bureaucrats.

If the Indonesian middle class is, indeed, growing, as most observers agree (Dick 1985:71; Lev
1990:44), the new strata should provide opportunities for upward social mobility. With increasing
self-recruitment of the bureaucracy the chances of lower class persons to advance remains slim or
might even get worth. The reduction of upward mobility chance is also shown by rising
unemployment rates of high school and university graduates. According to estimates of the
Department of Manpower more than half of the graduates do not find adequate employment. High
educational attainment alone is no sufficient precondition for entry into the middle class any more.
The social limits of economic growth become visible.

Conclusions

As Selosoemardjan has shown in his seminal study of social changes in Yogyakarta, the 1950s were
a period of high upward social mobility and social transformation. The nobility receded to the
backstage of history, the priyayi coutiers were replaced by civil servants of the Republic of
Indonesia and the old Dutch educated middle class moved into important political and social
positions. Sukarno and Hatta, the president and vice-president were members of this class who had
reached the apex of power. But also Suharto, president von 1968 bis 1998, had risen from humble
peasant background, where his parents lived in a small village of Kemasuk near Yogyakarta, into a
respected middle-class position of Major-General in the Indonesian Army, when he was stationed in
Yogyakarta during revolutionary times.

In the 1980s and 90s the situation in Yogyakarta had dramatically changed. Upward social mobility
rates declined, partly because the major route for social advancement, namely a civil service
position, became closed by increasing self-recruitment within the bureaucracy: sons and daughters
followed their fathers into the government service, leaving little opportunity for outsiders to move
up into a civil service position. But probably also social erosion has left its imprint on Yogyakartan
society: Upward social mobility leads to a move to Jakarta and downward social mobility to
permanent residence in Yogyakarta.

Since then Indonesian society has undergone dramatic changes with increasing economic growth.
For the first time in history employment in agriculture dropped below 50% of the labour force in the
early 1990s, whereas employment in industry was rising rapidly. The informal sector, though still
important, stopped growing and started to recede (Evers 1992, Evers and Mehmet 1994).
Consumption patterns and life-styles were changing rapidly with the growth of an Indonesian
middle class (Gerke 1993, Evers 1994) and a democratisation of the authoritarian, military
dominated state was put on the political agenda by non-government organizations. The World Bank
recommended structural adjustment policy of deregulation became a major factor in the ongoing
social transformation of Indonesian society (Evers 1993).

Yogyakarta has to be seen in this context and it may be permissibble to speculate about the political
dimensions of the changing mobility patterns in Yogyakarta and in Indonesia as a whole. When
social mobility rates decline, social pressure mounts. The increase in social unrest, strikes and racial
strife has, indeed, pointed to the problems of a society undergoing rapid economic growth and
market expansion without the appropriate mobility, democratization and evolution of civil rights.
The down fall of the authoritarian Suharto regime in 1998 and increasing democratization led to
increasing social mobility, but also to a concentartion of wealth in the Jakarta elite.
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Authors

Prof. Dr. Hans-Dieter Evers is emeritus Professor of Development Planning and Senior Fellow,
Center for Development Research (ZEF), University of Bonn (on leave) and Visiting Professor,
Institute of Malaysian and International Studies (IKMAS), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia

Prof. Dr. Solvay Gerke is Professor and Director, Center for Development Research (ZEF),
University of Bonn (on leave) and Professor, Institute of Asian Studies, Universiti Brunei
Darussalam
i This paper is based on intensive field research by both authors in Yogyakrta between 1987-1994. Results of these
studies were presented at staff seminars of the Sociology of Development Research Centre, University of Bielefeld, the
Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore and the National University of Malaysia, where both authors served as
visiting staff. This seminar paper has not been published so far.
ii The difference between the nobility proper and the priyayi should be noted, though the borderline between the two is
not easy to draw.
iii This is contradicted by Heather Sutherland, who shows that most higher priyayi inherited their position from their
fathers, at least before the 1930s (Sutherland 1979:130).
iv The total population of the DI Yogyakarta was estimated to be 2 million in 1958.
v It should be noted that this type of analysis differs somewhat from Geertz well known description of the partition of
Javanese society into three aliran (vertical socio-cultural groups) of Priyayi, Santri and Abangan (Geertz 1963). The
westernised intelligentia has no place in Geertz scheme.
vi The 1950s have recently received increased attention, because they were the times of Indonesias attempt to establish
a democratic multy-party state. See the proceedings of the 1995 conference at Monash University.
viiThis survey on Labour Market Expansion, Segmentation and Mobility was carried out in September-October 1993 by
Hans-Dieter Evers, Solvay Gerke, Susi Eja Yuarsi, Heru Nugroho and Sukamtiningsih, under the auspices of the
Population Studies Center, Gadjah Mada University and the Sociology of Development Research Centre, University of
Bielefeld.
viii This survey on Informal Sector Trade was carried out in August-September 1992 by Hans-Dieter Evers and
Tadjuddin N.E.
ixThis survey was carried out in April-May 1993 by Solvay Gerke and Hans-Dieter Evers with a team of researchers
from Andalas University.
xOf course also other age cohorts could have bee used, but our data show, that mobility aspirations are usually realised
during an early age, as job-life expectancy was and still is low in Yogyakarta and elsewhere in Indonesia. A discussion
on the methodology underlying our survey has to be carried out elsewhere in greater detail.
xi Calculations based on unpublished SUSENAS data 1992 for Yogyakarta city.