Household Livelihoods Strategies of Descendants of Transmigrants in Jambi Province, Indonesia

Abstract

The implementation of transmigration as one of population programs in Indonesia has been going on for a long time. Especially in Jambi Province, it has been started since 1940. Today, most of the former transmigration areas are already occupied by descendants of transmigrants households. These households have limited land (due to the inheritance/ distribution of land from their parents as first generation transmigrants) and decreased fertility land. This has an impact on the welfare of families in ex-transmigration villages. Based on this situation, it is necessary to conduct a study related to the livelihood strategies of descendants of transmigrants household. Livelihood strategy study has to be linked to household characteristics and social capital as the most important capital own by rural agriculture communities. The study aims to analyze the livelihood strategies of descendants of transmigrants households in Jambi Province. The data were obtained from a survey of 300 descendants of transmigrants households in six ex-transmigration villages in Jambi Province. Analytical tools in this study are descriptive statistical tools and multinomial logit regression model. The results found that the livelihood strategy most frequent to be carried out by descendant of transmigrants households was dual income patterns (39.33 percent), followed by agricultural livelihood engineering (31.00 percent) and migration (29.67 percent). Factors that significantly influence the choice of livelihood strategy by the households are the education level and age of head of household, the number of household members, the proportion of working household members, and social capital.