Female vs male migrants in Batam City manufacture: Better equality or still gender bias?

The proportion of female migrants working in manufacture is higher than male migrants in the city of Batam. This study investigates whether this phenomenon implies better equality in labor market or whether it still has gender-biased conditions. Using the 2010 Census, three indicators used to assess gender bias: marital status and living arrangement, the percentage of under-five and the percentage of adults. Female migrants with higher probability to work in manufacture are the ones who are not married while male migrants with higher probability to work in manufacture are the ones who are married. The percentage of under-five is negatively related with female migrants’ probability to work in manufacture while positively related with male migrants’ probability to work in manufacture. The percentage of adults positively affect the probability to work for both male and female migrants, but for female migrants the effect is much steeper. These findings indicate that the opportunity of womens’ time may be still highly connected with household production much more than of men’s. Thus, female migrants may be more likely to work in manufacture than male migrants, but under certain gender bias conditions, their probabilities to work in manufacture may be declining.