Indonesia’s demographic mosaic

Indonesia is both the home of the largest population of Muslims in any nation, and the most complex mosaic of Islamic sects, organizations and belief systems of any majority Muslim population. The impact of this variety on demographic structures and trends was long regarded as inconsequential because there were few differentials of vital statistics that could be associated with religious beliefs. Under the New Order government of President Suharto Islamic leaders were enlisted into the causes of fertility control and national development, both of which promoted demographic homogeneity. Islamic teachers who opposed these forces were suppressed. The 2010 Population Census has revealed some serious challenges to government’s efforts to reduce fertility. From around 2005 the average age at marriage reversed a trend of increase that prevailed over half a century, and declined by almost 1 full year according to the Census and national surveys. This in turn reduced the age at which women began childbearing, and raised the total fertility rate from 2.3 children per woman according to the 2007 Demographic and Health Survey to 2.4 in the 4 year period prior to the Census. Growing influence of fundamentalist Islamic teachings, as reflected in popular media, encourages young people to marry at young ages and subsequently to have children earlier than recent generations. Whether this will slow the rate of decline of population growth in the coming century is an open question, but it does appear to signal a major shift in Indonesia’s socio-religious behavioral make-up.