Determinants of Working Mother in Indonesia’s Agricultural and Manufacture

Abstract

This study examined the factors influencing mothers' participation in the agricultural and manufacturing sectors and explored the impact of their employment on their welfare levels. The main factors included the husband's education level, employment sector, employment status, the mother's education level, the number of household dependents, the number of young children, and the mother's working hours. The present study employed a comprehensive analysis of 264,311 individual data points, derived from maternal and household data obtained through the National Socioeconomic Survey (Susenas) conducted in March 2022 (https://www.bps.go.id/). Utilising Binary Logistic Regression as a statistical method, the study aimed to elucidate relationships ad patterns within the dataset, facilitating a robust understanding of the socioeconomic factors influencing maternal outcomes. The logistic regression analysis indicated that all the factors significantly influenced mothers' decisions to work. The husband's employment sector affected the wife's choice of employment sector. Mothers who work in agriculture are significantly more likely to be employed in the same field if their husbands also work in agriculture, with the odds being 5.98 times greater than those in other industries. Likewise, mothers in manufacturing have a similar trend; if their husbands work in manufacturing, they are 7.37 times more likely to be in that industry compared to other sectors. Higher education levels of the husband and the mother, and the husband's formal sector employment, encouraged mothers to choose jobs outside agriculture and manufacturing. An increase in the number of household dependents and the mother's working hours drove mothers to work in agriculture and manufacturing. This is likely because these sectors often employ family workers (over 60 per cent in agriculture) who can accommodate flexible working hours and household management. The welfare level, measured by the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), is 0.1161 for households in agriculture, compared to 0.0403 for households with mothers working in manufacturing. This indicated that households with mothers in manufacturing were more prosperous.