Landed oligarchy harm schooling contribution to structural change: Lessons learned from Indonesia

Abstract Landed oligarchy is one of the long standing problems in many developing countries. As no recent studies examine this issue, this study aims at filling this research gap by analyzing specifically whether or not the landed oligarchic harms schooling contribution to the structural change by taking Indonesia as a case study. Using the Socio-economic Survey (SUSENAS) data and employing the expenditure and employment share approaches, it was found that higher-educated employment in Indonesia contributes positively to manufacturing and services. The employability of senior high school-educated workers is higher in the manufacturing sector while the service sectors are in favor of college-educated workers. However, the contribution of schooling is relatively limited if the landless household share is more than 40 percent. This study confirms that landed oligarchy harms higher-educated employment's contribution to Indonesia's structural transformation process. This evidenced-based research has valuable policy contributions, especially for the Asia Pacific, American Latin and African economies in rethinking the practices of land oligarchy to sustain their development programs. It is now or never. JEL: Q15; Q18.