Indonesian Demographic Data: Challenges and Opportunities in Analyzing Adult Mortality

Salahudin S. Muhidin, University of Queensland

In Indonesia and in other Asian countries, demographic data collection has improved considerably over time. Nowadays, population censuses and national coverage demographic surveys have been conducted regularly. However, insufficient resources and priority have been given to analysis. An especially important issue is the lack of available data suitable for estimating the adult mortality indicators. This paper explores the development of Indonesian data collection on mortality. For empirical analysis, it focuses on adult mortality data derived from different data sources including the 2000 Census, the 2005 Inter-censal Survey (Supas), and the 1998 National Socioeconomic Survey (Susenas). The study investigates how well these data collections capture the national and sub-regional Indonesian mortality experience. Life table and data adjustment methods have been applied. Results show that improvement in data quality and timeliness of adult mortality measurements should be possible by fully using existing datasets and applying standard analytical strategies.