Jakarta Is Losing Migrants, But Where Are They Going?

SUPAS 2025 records approximately 4 million Indonesians living in a different province from the one they lived in five years earlier. In statistical terms, this group is called recent migrants.

DKI Jakarta is the province with the largest number of recent out-migrants, at 667,083 people. In the same period, Jakarta received 127,465 recent in-migrants. The difference yields a recent net migration of minus 539,618 people, the largest negative figure among all provinces in Indonesia.

The provinces with the next-largest negative net figures are Banten at minus 82,544, Central Kalimantan at minus 20,413, Papua at minus 19,020, and Bali at minus 13,736.

So one part of the popular narrative is indeed visible in the data: Jakarta is losing population through migration, and on a scale far greater than any other province.

For brands, however, the next question matters more: are those who leave truly abandoning the economic center to build lives in secondary cities, or are they simply relocating to other areas that remain connected to the economic center?

The following data offer clues.

If remote work were the main driver of movement out of big cities, out-migration pressure should grow stronger as hybrid work becomes more established. The data point in a different direction.

The recent in-migration rate, defined as the proportion of the population aged 5 and above who lived in another province five years earlier, is compared below using an identical formula for both periods:

Jakarta's recent out-migration rate also fell, from 7.62 percent to 6.33 percent. Inter-provincial movement across Indonesia as a whole has slowed, while Jakarta is shedding population at a lower rate than five years earlier.

The only region in the table above to record an increase is Central Java.

This slowdown is not visible from just two observation points. Between the Long Form SP2020 and SUPAS 2025 there are three annual readings from a separate source, the National Socio-Economic Survey (Susenas). Citing the Migrant Profile from Susenas series (Badan Pusat Statistik, 2022, 2024, 2025), the percentage of the population with recent inter-provincial migrant status was 2.1 percent in March 2021, 1.0 percent in March 2023, and 0.9 percent in March 2024.

The Susenas figures are not comparable in level with SUPAS or the Long Form because the sample design and reference period differ. What can be compared is the direction, and the direction is the same: downward.

In other words, the data do not yet show a strengthening wave of movement out of big cities during the period in which hybrid work has become more established.

For marketers, this means the assumption that consumers are collectively moving their center of life from Jakarta to secondary cities needs to be read more carefully.

The reverse urbanization narrative often places Yogyakarta, Bandung, and Malang as the main destinations for those leaving Jakarta.

The national migration map shows a different concentration.

Central Java recorded the most recent in-migrants in Indonesia, at 886,346 people, followed by West Java with 545,233 and East Java with 364,329. The highest positive recent net migration is also in Central Java, at 638,865 people, far ahead of East Java at 104,682, West Nusa Tenggara at 95,069, East Nusa Tenggara at 69,910, and West Sumatra at 64,704.

The Special Region of Yogyakarta (DIY) received 136,492 people and lost 106,251, for a positive net of 30,240. That figure is positive, but equals only about one-twentieth of Central Java's net.

As a net recipient, DIY sits far below the large provinces. DIY's recent net migration rate fell from 2.25 percent in the Long Form SP2020 to 0.86 percent in SUPAS 2025.

Yogyakarta's appeal as a destination shows no strengthening in the latest migration data.

Central Java is also not the finding of a single survey. The province's recent net migration was positive in three consecutive Susenas editions: 0.5 percent in 2021, 0.7 percent in 2023, and 0.6 percent in 2024.

In the latest edition, Central Java was the number one destination province for out-migrants from DKI Jakarta at 29.4 percent, for out-migrants from West Java at 41.4 percent, and for out-migrants from the Special Region of Yogyakarta at 43.6 percent.

If brands want to read where the population is moving, Central Java is an important part of a map that has been largely overlooked in the secondary-city narrative.

Susenas holds one shift that is not visible in the aggregate figures. Within three years, the composition of destinations for out-migrants from DKI Jakarta changed.

Central Java's share has nearly doubled. Banten's share has shrunk to less than half. Meanwhile, West Java and East Java have remained relatively stable.

This difference matters when translated into a market context.

Banten, particularly Tangerang and South Tangerang, is part of the Jakarta metropolitan area. Moving there preserves economic connectivity with Greater Jakarta (Jabodetabek). Central Java lies outside that metropolitan system and is the province with the most negative lifetime net migration in Indonesia, at minus 16.6 percent in 2024.

For decades, Central Java has been a source of migrants heading to Indonesia's big cities. Now the province is also an important destination for people leaving Jakarta.

So the data do not show that the center of demand is simply shifting from Jakarta to "lifestyle cities." What is visible is a change in the corridors of population movement, especially from Jakarta toward Central Java.

For companies that follow consumer movement, this corridor shift is more relevant than merely looking for whichever city is trending on social media.

There is another indicator that helps in reading the relationship between work and location: commuters.

SUPAS 2025 records 11,038,760 commuters in Indonesia, defined as people who regularly travel across regional boundaries for work or school. In the ten metropolitan areas, the number reaches 5,779,412.

The Jabodetabekpunjur Metropolitan Area alone accommodates 3,232,517 commuters, or about 56 percent of all commuters in those ten metropolitan areas.

This means more than three million people still make routine trips into the Jakarta metropolitan area.

This figure shows that connectivity with the economic center has not disappeared. Hybrid work may reduce travel frequency for some workers, but the 2025 data do not yet show that the geographic link between where people live and where economic activity is concentrated has been structurally severed.

For brands, this means markets based on daily mobility remain relevant, even as work patterns change.

These quantitative findings are consistent with recent qualitative research.

Citing a study by Muhammad Yorga Permana published in Regional Studies in 2025, research on 50 online platform workers in five secondary cities in Java, namely Bandung, Yogyakarta, Malang, Semarang, and Surakarta, found that remote workers remain strongly embedded in the local urban context.

They carry out online tasks by moving among several physical work locations, maintain face-to-face interaction within social networks to exchange knowledge, and operate as micro-entrepreneurs who use urban density as a business ecosystem.

The study also noted that Bandung, Yogyakarta, and Malang show a higher concentration of platform workers than Semarang and Surakarta, and that some secondary cities have concentrations exceeding what their population size would predict.

This finding provides important context: remote work does not automatically mean living without ties to the city.

Some remote workers actually choose cities that provide social networks, workspaces, customers, and economic activity.

In other words, a change in how people work may change how they use the city, without automatically eliminating the importance of the city itself.

SUPAS 2025 presents internal migration only by province and sex. The publication does not include breakdowns by age, reason for moving, or employment status of internal migrants.

The age dimension can be examined from other sources, and the results do confirm one part of the popular narrative.

Susenas records the age structure of recent migrants every year, and the 20-to-39 age group consistently accounts for more than half of inter-provincial movement in Indonesia: 56.7 percent in 2021, 52.2 percent in 2023, and 54.5 percent in 2024 (Badan Pusat Statistik, 2022, 2024, 2025).

Inter-provincial migrants do indeed come largely from the productive-age group.

The next question, however, is: do they move for work, or for other reasons?

Salsabila and Mulyani of Universitas Gadjah Mada processed the Long Form SP2020 microdata and obtained 7,379 records of recent migrants to DIY for the reference period July 2017 to June 2022. Their results, published in Jurnal ISO in December 2025, provide a layer of information not available in SUPAS 2025.

The main reasons for moving to DIY are following the nuclear family at 39.0 percent, education at 25.4 percent, and employment at 21.0 percent. The remainder is split between change in marital status at 6.8 percent and other reasons at 7.7 percent.

The cross-tabulation of age and migration reason in that study narrows the question to the group most relevant to the young-worker narrative.

The 20-to-34 age group comprises 3,255 people, or 44.1 percent of all recent migrants. It is in this group that testing the remote-work hypothesis is most relevant.

Even in the age group most likely to work remotely, employment explains only about a quarter of movement. Education remains the largest reason.

In the 20-to-24 age group, this dominance is even clearer, with 1,146 of 1,707 migrants, or 67.1 percent, moving for education.

This changes how we read the market of an education city such as Yogyakarta. Growth in the city's young population does not automatically mean an influx of remote workers with Jakarta-level incomes. Most of the flow visible in the data is in fact education-related.

Citing the Migrant Profile from Susenas 2024 (Badan Pusat Statistik, 2025), 61.5 percent of recent migrants entering the Special Region of Yogyakarta were never married and 59.2 percent had completed senior high school or equivalent.

DIY is the only major province in Java whose migrants are dominated by the never-married; in Central Java and West Java the proportions are only 23.1 percent and 27.4 percent, respectively. BPS itself links this pattern to DIY's appeal as a destination province for higher education.

Two different sources and two different periods show a similar pattern.

Much of what flows into Yogyakarta comes from the school and university student group, not merely professionals relocating their place of work.

The same study identifies Sleman Regency as the largest destination with 2,682 migrants, or 36.3 percent, and records that 73.4 percent of recent migrants to DIY came from Java and Bali.

The study groups migrant origins by island, so the specific flow from DKI Jakarta to DIY remains unmeasured in number of people. Susenas 2024 narrows that gap from the compositional side: DKI Jakarta accounts for 6.6 percent of recent migrants entering DIY, ranking fourth after Central Java at 38.8 percent, East Java at 12.1 percent, and West Java at 11.0 percent.

These data do not mean remote workers are not moving to Yogyakarta. It is possible that a small group of remote workers is indeed leaving Jakarta for secondary cities.

Nationally, however, their number is not yet large enough to explain the observed migration pattern.

In other words, the phenomenon of reverse urbanization may exist at certain levels, but it is not yet readable as a national migration pattern.

The migration data offer brands one warning: market growth in secondary cities does not automatically come from the relocation of Jakarta workers.

Yogyakarta, for example, has a large inflow of migrants, but their profile shows a strong character as an education city. In 2024, the majority of recent migrants entering DIY were never married and 59.2 percent had completed senior high school or equivalent.

This means brands that read Yogyakarta only as a destination for professionals with Jakarta-level purchasing power risk using a consumer assumption that is too narrow.

Central Java offers a different market signal. The province absorbs the most recent migrants in Indonesia, is the only major region in the table whose in-migration rate increased, and in 2024 became the number one destination for out-migrants from Jakarta, West Java, and Yogyakarta.

An expansion map cannot be built only from the cities that most often appear in lifestyle conversations. Population movement points to other corridors that also deserve attention.

The Jakarta–Central Java corridor deserves to be read as a flow in its own right. Within three years, its share of Jakarta's outflow rose from 16.7 to 29.4 percent, while Banten's share shrank.

Categories that follow household relocation, from logistics, furniture, and financial services to telecommunications, can use this change as one input for re-reading the distribution of demand.

At the same time, the Jabodetabekpunjur commuter market of 3.23 million people remains a large and measurable mobility segment. Products and services targeting daily travel have not lost their market base simply because work patterns have become more flexible.

For Policy: Don't Assume Hybrid Work Eliminates Mobility

Infrastructure planning in Jabodetabek cannot assume that hybrid work will, by itself, structurally reduce commuter pressure. The 2025 data show that commuter volume remains large.

Central Java needs to anticipate capacity in public services, housing, and employment commensurate with its position as the largest net recipient of migrants in Indonesia. A province that for decades was a place of origin for migrants now also faces a role as a destination.

The shift in the destination of Jakarta's outflow from Banten to Central Java also needs to enter the planning assumptions of both provinces. Patterns of population movement can affect needs for housing, public services, transportation, and economic facilities in both regions.

An important data gap remains to be filled.

National migration statistics do not yet record work location, work mode, or workers' attachment to a physical office. Without these variables, the relationship between the transformation of work and patterns of population movement remains difficult to test directly.

Adding a remote-work module to Sakernas (the National Labour Force Survey) or to the next population survey would provide an empirical basis for questions that are currently answered largely through assumption.

So, Is Indonesia Experiencing Reverse Urbanization?

Four main findings hold up against the data.

First, Jakarta is indeed Indonesia's largest migrant-shedding region. Second, that outflow has weakened compared with five years earlier, during a period when hybrid work has become more established, and three editions of Susenas show the same direction. Third, the largest recipients of Indonesia's migration flows are the large provinces of Java, especially Central Java, not merely the secondary cities that often appear in lifestyle narratives. Fourth, the most visible change is in the direction of Jakarta's outflow, particularly the shift from Banten to Central Java.

The popular narrative is right that young people dominate inter-provincial migration. However, the reasons for moving are more varied. In the 20-to-34 age group at the heart of this narrative, employment explains only about a quarter of movement to Yogyakarta, while education explains nearly four in ten.

For the market, the implication is simple: do not treat every instance of secondary-city growth as the effect of remote workers relocating from Jakarta.

Remote work does change how some Indonesians work. But as of 2025, that change has not been strong enough to reverse the national migration pattern.

What has changed is not merely where people live, but which corridors are beginning to receive new flows of population and consumers.

References

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