By: Norman Triangga )*
The Windows of opportunity only opens the demographic bonus a lifetime of Indonesian. If Indonesia is not able to exploit the window of opportunity to the maximum, the momentum to make the big leap into the developed country will be missed.
Demographic bonus is one of the advantages of Indonesia in the 2020-2030 range next year. It is a necessity and need not be addressed with excessive. With the number of productive age are expected to reach 70 percent compared with age unproductive, Indonesia should be able to manage with optimal bonus when prepared with sincerity.
But if the demographic bonus is not used properly, it will be a boomerang for the Indonesian and not be achieved Indonesian Golden quality in 2045. Because, if the productive population that is not qualified, it will cause social problems such as poverty, poor health, unemployment and a high crime rate. There is no other choice for a country to face the demographic bonus unless the deal.
In fact, the quality of the working age population in general is still low. National Labour Force Survey Data (Sakernas) showed, in August 2014 about 65 percent of the population 15+ years of working only graduated from elementary school to the bottom and/or SMP. In addition, while the labor force participation rate is quite high, reaching 66.6 percent, and the number of people working continues to increase, mostly working in the informal economy. Though this sector is synonymous with the uncertainty of income and social security. Thus, the hope of having much less savings to invest in the workforce in the informal sector is very thin.
So it all depends on how the government is addressing the phenomenon of population and how the community supports the government in the face of demographic bonus.
The question is, whether the Demographic Bonus which already appears in sight, we let it pass without making concrete efforts to get it? Is a large population of productive age we let it idle? Or they are just low-quality human resources because only primary or secondary school who do not have the skills?
Now, just how do we prepare ourselves to face and take advantage of the demographic bonus that we will get. There is still time for us to prepare our productive age population to improve their quality by improving education, skills and health as well as no less important is our ability to prepare jobs for labor, in accordance with abilities, education and skills of our workforce, so they were able to earn income to sustain the lives of himself and his family, primarily included in non-productive age group.
To reap the benefits of the demographic bonus, improving the quality of human resources in Indonesia should be a top priority from now. Demographic bonus should be utilized to the maximum by preparing everything, so we can make the most of our nation’s progress in the future.
