Origins and occupational mobility of lifetime migrants to Surabaya, East Java

Abstract

This thesis investigates the origins of lifetime migrants to Surabaya, East Java, and examines the occupational mobility which they experienced as a result of migration. It is mainly concerned with evaluating the occupational mobility and occupational position of inmigrants at different stages of migration in terms of the inmigrants origins and pre-migration characteristics. The first part of the study (Chapters Two, Three and Four) analyses the historical evolution of Surabaya, the geographical origins of migrants and their demographic and socio-economic characteristics prior to migration. The second and major part of the study (Chapters Five, Six, Seven and Eight) compares sequentially the occupations of inmigrants before migration, on arrival in Surabaya, and at the time of the survey in 1974. The amount of occupational mobility experienced by migrants is assessed according to changes between these periods of time in the occupational status and sector of employment defined according to the tri-sectoral model of the urban economy. The aim of these two approaches is on the one hand to assess (for the first time) the explanatory value of the tri-sectoral model in explaining intersectoral occupational mobility associated with migration; and on the other to assess whether an approach which incorporates the individual pre-migration attributes of migrants has a greater capacity to predict the occupational and socioeconomic status of inmigrants. The major finding is that although most migrants have benefited economically from the move to Surabaya, few have been occupationally mobile at any stage of migration. Migrants from underprivileged backgrounds prior to migration have in most cases seen their underprivileged position relative to other migrants carried with them to Surabaya. Another finding is that as a predictor of occupational mobility or as an analytical tool to examine labour markets, the tri-sectoral model is not a significant advance on the traditional model of urban dualism. Third, because of the lack of occupational mobility among migrants, a multivariate model based on five pre-migration predictors alone is able to 'explain' a significant proportion of the income of male and female migrants in Surabaya.