AccScience Publishing / IJPS / Online First / DOI: 10.36922/IJPS025190084
RESEARCH ARTICLE

Internal migration in Indonesia: Remapping trajectories

Agus Joko Pitoyo1,2* Sukamdi Sukamdi1,2 Muhammad Arif Fahrudin Alfana1 Nanang Widaryoko3
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1 Department of Enviromental Geography, Faculty of Geography, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, Indonesia
2 Center for Population and Policy Studies, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, Indonesia
3 Population Studies, The Graduate School, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, Indonesia
Received: 6 May 2025 | Revised: 28 July 2025 | Accepted: 11 August 2025 | Published online: 25 August 2025
© 2025 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
Abstract

Most conventional perspectives depict internal migration as a straightforward process, starting in rural areas and culminating in urban centers. This study, utilizing data from the Indonesian Family Life Survey (IFLS), aims to explore alternative migration patterns in Indonesia beyond the traditional rural–urban migration. Analyzing five waves of IFLS data, this research employed sequence analysis and multinomial logistic regression, revealing a nuanced picture of internal migration in Indonesia. The results reveal that, contrary to the one-step rural-urban migration narrative, individuals in Indonesia often undergo multiple rural or urban migrations, influenced by factors such as gender, education, age, and migration motives. These findings underscore the complexity of internal migration patterns in Indonesia, challenging the conventional rural–urban migration model.

Keywords
Migration
Trajectory
Rural-urban migration
Contemporary
Funding
This research was funded by Universitas Gadjah Mada through the Academic Excellence Grant Scheme A of 2024, notification number 6513/UN1.P1/PT.01.01/2024, dated May 30, 2024.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare they have no competing interests.
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