Looking Migration from both Positive and Negative Sides

Migration is a phenomenon which has occurred in Indonesia throughout history and Jakarta is the most wanted city to be lived at. The migration of people from the outer region to the city can’t be avoided since city could attract many people to work there by the economic activity, modern infrastructure and many better development in there. So it is obvious why migration still continued up to the present and even increase in some areas. But, no matter how bad it sounds, we still have to look migration from both positive and negative sides, if we see it from the positive one, migration could be a way getting more people to make a better Jakarta by selecting the qualified ones, but as from the negative sides, there will be some problems which will appear such as congestion, more slum areas and criminality issue in Jakarta itself. This essay will talk about the positive impact of migration if it is seen as a solution such as getting more human resource can make a better future of Jakarta and also it will talk about the negative side if we keep those immigrants coming to the city.

The megacity Jakarta is a special city with full of expectations for those who want a better future in life. Jakarta is a home of major business trades from all over Indonesia and their capital of administration. According to Badan Pusat Statistik Indonesia, there will be an increasing amount of people who will move out from Jakarta due to the overpopulation and there will be no more available place for live. And that case will reach its highest point by the year 2015 and 2020. But still, it will not do any good to the people who want to work in Jakarta, because Badan Pusat Statistik Indonesia said that although those people will move out of Jakarta, they will live in the other city near Jakarta such as Bogor, Tangerang or Bekasi, we can call it Urban Sprawl,  and still tend to work or get an education in Jakarta.

An educated and well-skilled human resource is the key to economic growth. As the commercial and economic center of Indonesia, it would be a good oppurtunity for Jakarta having a stronger economic growth. When the economy of Jakarta grows well, it will increase the income and lead to a better development of Jakarta. As the capital city, Jakarta has to be the best city and be an example to other city in Indonesia. In addition, if we see the other capital city such as Hong Kong that well known as one of the ten major world trading powers and financial centers (Perry, 2013), it has achieved a sufficiently high economic growth because Hongkong is revealed to have a better infrastructure, financial market regulations, quality of human resources, economic environment and political environment and government support.

The skilled and young immigrants also can productively help and participate in city’s development with more innovation and energy. They can creatively give some new idea. The youth participation is more productive than elders, An implication of productivity differences by age and education is that the age structure and distribution of educational attainment in the workforce can have noticeable effects on average worker productivity and its rate of change (Dension 1974). Beside that, The pension gap can be filled by the contributions of new young workers too. An Oxford Economics research study published by the Department of Employment and Learning (DEL) concluded that migrant workers had helped maintain an adequate labor supply to fuel the 2004–2008 economic boom.

In reality, most of immigrants who come to Jakarta are unskilled and cause some problems such as congestion, criminality increasing, more slum dwellers, and of course the increasing of unemployment people. It can be seen if the amount of people is more than the job offered, it will lead to the problem of unemployment. Whether the newcomers or the people originally come from Jakarta, if they don’t have any skill or aren’t educated enough to get any job, they will become jobless. As the result, the urban poor or the urban people who live under the average will increase. However, if we can manage to select the immigrants who have skills, we can get a more productive worker and it will raise the economy of Jakarta.

The people in rural tend to move to a megacity or a city that has a good economic activity or a better education since they think the education in a megacity is a better than in rural area. Those things lead some problem to Jakarta itself, as the people in Jakarta increase, surely it leads the transportation, and especially the private vehicles in Jakarta keep rising because the facility in the means of public transportation is not an appropriate means to use and resulting a congestion problem.

Because of the land shortage in Jakarta, some newcomers who don’t get any job, surely can’t afford their life and they can’t buy or get any proper house as well. They end up making an illegal housing in illegal land like at the riverbanks, they obviously make a new slum area and degrade the beauty of the city. Even though the government has relocated the slums into the flats, people tend to live at those illegal place. It will be useless if the immigrants keep coming to Jakarta. Besides, if the Jakarta city has an overload population, it indirectly makes criminality cases increase. Because, when the newcomers that don’t have a qualified skill and don’t get any job, they will seek another way to survive in Jakarta even if they have to do an illegal things.

Analyzing the problem of the migration such as a lack of job in rural and a common belief if the urban education has a better quality than in rural ones, There are two conflicting views on the role of education influencing migration (Stark, 1982). we still can’t ban the immigrants from coming to Jakarta, but we have to restrict or prevent them by increasing the rural economy and developing the education or the infrastructure since infrastructure is the main part of a sustainable development. We have to attract or maybe tell the rural people about the importance of developing their own place instead of coming to a megacity and searching for a job. But, we also have to select the skilled people to come to Jakarta and work there since it can help the economic growth and make Jakarta capable to economically deliver a proper housing, modern educational institution, high-quality public infrastructure.

So, we can conclude that if Jakarta can select the educated and well-skilled newcomers, migration can be a good opportunity to improve the quality of Jakarta, we can see Hong Kong as the capital city of China which also has high population or even higher than Indonesia, Hong Kong can manage its human resource by selecting the qualified ones, so Hong Kong can get more productive workers who surely can improve the economic growth. On the other hand, an uncontrolled migration can cause many problems for Jakarta itself, it can cause congestion problems, the increasing of unemployment, criminality and also improper housing issue.  That’s why we still have to improve the quality of rural area such as its education, jobs and also the quality as the agricultural sector, low agricultural income and agricultural unemployment and under employment in many developing countries are the major factors pushing migrants from rural areas to the areas with greater job opportunities (Oberai and Singh, 1983).

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