ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes some general regional approaches to dealing with employment shortages and demographic pressure in rural areas in the context of rising rural-urban linkages in the Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta, and outlines an agenda for policy recommendations. Policy could partly consist in providing students from poor rural households with scholarships that could be granted at local level in those relevant fields that may benefit local development. Supporting traditional systems can constitute a pivotal component of a wider policy aiming at supporting community life and community-based programmes. Sectoral policies should be studied to ascertain whether the experience of existing traditional subcontracting systems in the batik industry can be applied to further activities with a higher economic potential. The rural-urban social disparities gap is narrowing in the Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta and life quality indices were among the very best in the country in the first half of the 1990s.
