While 70 percent of Indonesia’s population is currently in the productive age group, many are burdened by the responsibility of supporting more than one non-productive family member, he pointed out.
“Statistics show that about 41 percent of the population is employed in the formal sector; the remaining 59 percent still work in the informal sector,” he said at the ministry’s office here on Monday.
He informed that only around 13 to 15 million Indonesians filed annual tax returns (SPT) in 2025, showing the limited number of genuinely productive individuals in the country.
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The government, he stressed, is striving to capitalize on the demographic bonus momentum, and data is an important instrument to do that.
“If not, this golden momentum—one that rarely occurs in a nation’s history—could pass us by without us optimizing it,” he warned.
According to Setiyono, currently in Indonesia, each productive person is supporting up to five or six others, a situation that can push people into a cycle of debt.
He, therefore, emphasized the importance of increasing real productivity and urged all stakeholders to aim to make at least 80 percent of the population truly productive and transition informal workers into the formal sector.
“What matters is that they have real income that can contribute to our fiscal capacity,” he explained.
The ministry will also update Family Data (PK) from July 22 to August 21, 2025, targeting 12.9 million households across Indonesia.
The data is expected to serve as the foundation for interventions for eradicating extreme poverty, reducing stunting, and addressing other population issues to optimize the demographic bonus.
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Translator: Lintang, Kenzu
Editor: Rahmad Nasution
Copyright © ANTARA 2025
