ABSTRACT
Jakarta has long been a prime destination for migrants across the ethnically diverse Indonesian archipelago. Using qualitative insights from fieldwork and data from the 2010 Census, this paper examines patterns and drivers of ethnic intermarriage in Jakarta. Jakarta has the highest rate of interethnic marriage in Indonesia (33%). Among married adults aged 20–39, recent migrants have a notably lower likelihood of intermarriage than non-migrants and non-recent migrants. Fieldwork findings suggest that despite the decline in the practice of arranged marriage, third party influence and broader social structures continue to influence individuals’ preferences on who they should and should not marry. The popular notion that marriage signifies the union of two families reflects the unrelenting influence of parents and kinship networks in family formation decisions, and in contributing to a norm of ethnic assortative mating. Studying ethnic intermarriage in one of the world’s largest metropolises contributes to two growing strands of scholarship in social demography: the literature on assortative mating in multi-ethnic developing societies, and the literature on marriage transitions in Asia.
