Kependudukan dan Transmigrasi dalam Perspektif Pembangunan Nasional

Indonesia with its large population, numbering 196 million in 1995, is according to the present projection figures still expected to grow at a relatively high rate during the next few decades reaching 209.5 million by the year 2000 and 261.4 million by the year 2025. However, geographical distribution of the population is very uneven. According to 1995 figures, 58.9% of the population are living in Java, another 21% in Sumatra, whereas the rest are dispersed among the many sparsely popidated islands. Due to population mobility, Java will in the future attract more migrants from the other islands, increasing its dezzsity substantially from 813 people per hn2 in 1990 to 1,093 in 2020. The respective figures for Sumatra are 77 and 128, for Kalimantan 17 and 31, and for the Moluccas and West Irian 7 and 14. Obviously, the solution to the uneven geographical distribution of the population is transmigration from the densely populated to the sparsely populated islands. On the other hand, population mobility has an impact on regional development, not only between Java and the outer islands, but also between cities and rural areas.