Household Contributions to Community Development in Indonesia

SummaryCritical to the success of community development is the degree to which citizens contribute their resources. The paper develops regression models to examine the effects of household and community characteristics on household contributions of time and money to three types of participatory community development efforts: governance, social welfare, and environmental infrastructure. Households with indicators of lower socio-economic status generally contributed less time and money to community development. Integration into social networks was also a strong predictor of the amount of time a household contributed. Because most of the community development efforts analyzed rely on reciprocity, where participants contribute resources in order to receive benefits, the findings raise doubts about the extent to which these efforts help the poor and socially excluded.