The Price of Paradise for Indonesia’s Youth
With a population of over 285 million, Indonesia is the fourth most populous country in the world. Despite its large population, Indonesia ranked first in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)’s measure of unemployment as of March 2025, with a rate of 4.76 per cent. The dire state of the job market is not new to Indonesia, or its capital city of Jakarta, where the origins of the crisis trace back to the 1997-1998 Asian Financial Crisis.
Between 1997 and 1998, Southeast Asia suffered a major economic collapse when regional currencies lost their value, and foreign investors pulled their money out of the region. In Indonesia, the rupiah (Rp) plunged, banks failed, and thousands of companies went bankrupt almost overnight, leading to widespread layoffs, skyrocketing prices, and a sharp drop in living standards. Millions of Indonesians lost their jobs, and many who remained employed were forced into informal or unstable work. The crisis inflicted deep structural damage on Indonesia’s labour market, weakening its ability to create secure employment opportunities even after the economy recovered. Its effects are still visible today, as Indonesia struggles to provide enough decent jobs for its 44 million young people, many of whom are educated but remain unemployed or underemployed. This growing frustration has recently spilled into the streets, with recent youth-led protests against corruption and inequality reflecting the long shadow of the 1997 crisis on Indonesia’s present-day job struggles.
Protests erupted this past August, when the Deputy Speaker of Indonesia’s House of Representatives (DPR), Adies Kadir, publicly defended a Rp 50 million (approximately $4,400 CAD) monthly housing allowance for lawmakers. Kadir claimed that the sum was “reasonable” compensation for the cost of rental housing near Parliament as well as funding drivers and domestic help, especially for members who do not live in Jakarta. His remarks sparked outrage across Jakarta, touching a nerve in a country facing inflation, rising food prices, and widespread economic pressure. Whilst the average minimum wage varies by region, it typically ranges from Rp 1.8 million to Rp 4.5 million per month. In the case of Jakarta, the minimum wage is around Rp 4.9 million (around $420 CAD). Lawmakers, then, were earning more in allowances alone than many citizens make in two months of full-time work.
Discontent has been simmering since the election of President Prabowo Subianto in March 2024. Since Prabowo assumed office, the economy has shown troubling signs of sputtering, with sluggish growth, rising inequality and structural inefficiencies undermining public confidence. Meanwhile, Indonesia’s youth face acute joblessness and underemployment, with many stuck in low-productivity informal work or worse off entirely. In February 2025, university students across the country mobilized under the banner “Dark Indonesia,” protesting sweeping budget cuts, reductions in education funding, and austerity measures that they saw as threatening to their futures. Tensions finally exploded in August 2025; what started as peaceful protests over lawmakers’ perks and deepening economic disenchantment turned violent when Affan Kurniawan, a 21-year-old Gojek driver, was killed during clashes with the police. This event transformed broader anger into mass outrage and galvanized disparate voices into a unified movement.
Beneath the visible protests and daily scandals lies a deeper architecture of corruption embedded in Indonesia’s political system that is rooted in historical legacies, institutional design, and persistent inequality. Scholars at Universitas Gadjah Mada have observed that corruption in Indonesia is underpinned by pragmatism (people settling for shortcuts rather than ideals), greed, and systemic failures. Weak institutional systems that allow for the misuse of discretion, opaque import quotas, and poor data management are all part of a constellation of corruption across sectors. For example, a 2024 study by the Malang Corruption Watch (MCW) about corruption in the city of Batu shows how local elite networks, political patronage, and bribery are not anomalies but are built into the way regional power is structured. Political entitlements play a significant role: positions become investments that must yield returns (financial or otherwise), rather than purely public service. Law enforcement is inconsistent, and former corruption convicts are often able to run for office, diluting deterrence.
This permissive environment is reinforced by Indonesia’s Election Law (Law No. 7 of 2017), particularly Article 182(g), which allows individuals previously sentenced to imprisonment of five years or more to contest elections again if they “openly and honestly announce to the public that they have served their time as a convict.” This provision, upheld and clarified in the Constitutional Court Decision No. 03-03/PHPU/DPD-XXII/2024, affirmed the political rights of former corruption convicts to re-enter elections, interpreting Article 182(g) alongside Decision No. 12/PUU-XXI/2023 to remove the mandatory five-year waiting period. As analyzed by Saputra and Iwan (2024), this decision effectively restores the eligibility of former corruption convicts, which—while constitutionally grounded—raises ethical and governance concerns, as it contradicts the principles of integrity and public trust.
The dimension of economic inequality provides essential context. Indonesia’s tax and wealth structures disproportionately favour the rich, with just 135,000 bank accounts (each holding more than Rp 5 billion) controlling 53 per cent of total bank deposits. This concentration of wealth renders redistribution inadequate and heightens socio‑political tensions. In a system where public resources are captured by a few, and the lower echelons remain marginalized, corruption becomes both a symptom and a reinforcing mechanism of inequality. The entanglement of political entitlements with economic exclusion means that many ordinary Indonesians, especially youth, see few lawful avenues to socially advance, making protest and confrontation more likely. In short, structural corruption in Indonesia is not merely about malfeasance; it is embedded in institutional design, elite reproduction, and an economic order that privileges extraction over inclusion.
If internal corruption sustains inequality, external perception helps justify it. Indonesia is widely marketed as an “affordable paradise,” where tourists can enjoy luxury at a low cost. Phrases such as “this country is so cheap to travel to” are common, but behind this narrative lies a reality shaped by structural exploitation. Indonesia isn’t cheap: labour is. From ride-hailing drivers to hotel workers, millions of Indonesians are underpaid, pushing them into precarious service roles that sustain the “tourist experience.” This low-cost model benefits not only tourists and corporations, but also a government eager to promote economic growth without addressing inequality. Gig-economy companies like Gojek and Grab call their drivers “partners,” but studies show that they face long hours, unstable income, and little protection. Meanwhile, tourism ads and influencer content—often backed by state campaigns—obscure the fact that many of these workers earn far less than a living wage, while political elites enjoy salaries and perks up to ten times that. Both these influencers and the government are complicit in enabling the exploitation that promotes this image of Indonesia as “cheap.” They help maintain a narrative in which economic inequality is hidden or normalized and where wage struggles are meant to be pushed aside, while the lives of delivery drivers, taxi drivers, and hotel staff at multi-million dollar chain resorts remain undervalued.
To shift this narrative, we must question: who bears the cost of the lavish lifestyle we can offer ourselves for a week? Tourism is not neutral but a political act. To call Indonesia “cheap” is to ignore the systems of labour exploitation that make it so. Yet, the growing wave of youth protests across Indonesia suggests that this silence may no longer hold. The same generation locked out of stable jobs and fair wages is now demanding accountability from a system that profits from their precarity. If this movement gains momentum, it could force a national reckoning—not only with corruption and inequality, but with the economic model that keeps tourism thriving on cheap labour. Whether these protests can translate anger into lasting reform remains uncertain, but they mark a powerful reminder that Indonesia’s youth are no longer content to be the invisible workforce behind the country’s “affordable” paradise.
Edited by Alexandra Agosta-Lyon.
Featured image: Photo by Voicu Horațiu is licensed under the Unsplash License.
