Compromised Productivism: Translating Work–Family Balance Policy within Indonesia’s Emerging Welfare State Regime

Abstract

Increasing emphasis is being placed on work–family balance (WFB) within post-industrial social policy frameworks, yet its practice in newly urbanised contexts, where familialist and managerial–masculine legacies persist, remains understudied. This study examines how WFB is translated into social policy in Jakarta, Indonesia, drawing on interviews with ten working mothers and nine policymakers ( N = 19). The findings reveal that WFB measures are not designed to reconcile the intersecting roles of working mothers across production and social reproduction spheres, but rather to optimise their contributions to the labour market. Exacerbated by limited public daycare and costly market services, this situation compels mothers to rely on informal care from female relatives or unregulated providers, often involving economically vulnerable women. The permeability of gendered and informal relations within WFB practices suggests that Indonesia’s social policy has not fully shifted from conventional productivist approach but evolved into what we call compromised productivism .