Between caring and career: association between care provisioning and female labor force participation in Indonesia

The government of Indonesia has established an ambitious target of 70 percent female labor force participation (FLFP) by 2045. However, historical trends indicate that the progress toward this goal has been slow in the past few decades. While previous studies have identified care responsibilities as significant constraint to women’s labor supply, our research particularly focuses on exploring how informal care duties may alter women’s labor decisions, leveraging pooled cross-sectional data from SUSENAS spanning 2019-2023. Our findings demonstrate that women who provide care for their family members exhibit lower employment participation, with this effect being particularly evident among women in their prime reproductive ages. Moreover, among employed female caregivers, our results indicate that they tend to work fewer hours per week and are more likely to work in precarious employment sectors, thus creating a double burden due to competing pressures between work and care duties. This study underscores the importance of public care policies to help boost women’s economic engagement while simultaneously addressing persistent gender inequality.