As Indonesia's Middle Class Shrinks, Protests Rise

When people slip out of the middle class, more of them end up in the street. That is the finding of a new study from Singapore's ISEAS institute, published by Fulcrum, on why Indonesia has seen more and bigger protests in recent years. The researchers matched province-by-province data on incomes and demonstrations, and found a clear link: for every one percentage point of the middle class that a province loses, it sees about three more protests a year.

First, what counts as middle class here. The World Bank draws the line at households that spend between 3.5 and 17 times the national poverty line: comfortable enough to save a little and plan ahead, but not rich. Between 2018 and 2025, fewer Indonesians reached that group, and many educated workers slid into informal jobs (work with no contract, no pension, and no safety net). In more than half of the provinces studied, the middle class shrank as a share of the population.

As that squeeze spread, protests climbed, with sharp jumps in 2018, 2022, and 2024. Jakarta alone recorded 492 demonstrations in 2024, against a national average of about 52 per province. Unrest clustered in the most populated regions: Jakarta, West Java, Central Java, East Java, North Sumatra, and South Sulawesi. One twist stood out. Provinces with wider internet access saw fewer street protests, which suggests people vent some anger online instead of marching. The authors' warning is simple: a country's calm rests partly on a large, secure middle class, and when that base thins out, anger looks for somewhere to go.

Why it matters

If you are a salaried worker or small-business owner watching costs rise faster than your pay, this study puts numbers on what you already sense: the ladder into a comfortable life is getting harder to climb. Watch how Prabowo's government answers on jobs, prices, and formal work with real protections, because the research suggests a shrinking middle class does not stay quiet. For anyone running a business in a big city, more frequent protests are a real cost and a risk worth planning for.