Minimum Wage Level from Female Workers Perspective: Yogyakarta City Case

Female workers play important roles in supporting the family’s economy in Indonesia. The roles are even more strategic since about a half of Indonesian population is female. However, the important roles of female workers have not been compensated at a decent wage, so that the female worker potentials have not been optimally occupied. This has motivated this paper to build an empirical model for determining the minimum wage level that female workers are willing to get. Several factors that are considered to be the determinants of such a wage level are labor’s education, type of jobs, access to finance, skill, as well as entrepreneurial spirit. A multiple regression model will be built for this purpose. If these factors are appropriately identified, policies will be imposed by the government to determine the optimal wage level for such workers. The result is used to motivate female workers to increase their bargaining power facing job offers in various industries. The increased bargaining power will be, eventually, followed by an increase in their skills. This is beneficial both for workers and companies that hire them.