The economic cost of not breastfeeding in Indonesia is estimated at US$1.5–9.4 billion annually, the highest in South East Asia. Half of the 33.6 million working women of reproductive age (WRA) in Indonesia (15–49 years) are informal employees, meaning they are working as casual workers or they are self-employed (small scale business) and assisted by unpaid/family worker(s). No specific maternity protection entitlements are currently available for WRA working informally in Indonesia. This study aims to estimate the financing need of providing maternity leave cash transfer (MCT) for WRA working in the informal sector in Indonesia. The costing methodology used is the adapted version of the World Bank methodology by Vilar-Compte et al, following pre-set steps to estimate costs using national secondary data. We used the 2018 Indonesian National Socio-Economic Survey to estimate the number of women working informally who gave birth within the last year. The population covered, potential cash transfer’s unitary cost, the incremental coverage of the policy in terms of time and coverage, and the administrative costs were used to estimate the cost of MCT for the informal sector. At 100% coverage for 13 weeks of leave, the yearly financing need of MCT ranged from US$175million (US$152/woman) to US$669million (US$583/woman). The share of the yearly financing need did not exceed 0.5% of Indonesian Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The yearly financing need of providing MCT for eligible WRA working in the informal sector is economically attractive as it amounts to less than 0.5% of GDP nominal of Indonesia. While such a program would be perceived as a marked increase from current public health spending at the onset, such an investment could substantially contribute to the success of breastfeeding and substantial corresponding public health savings given that more than half of working Indonesian WRA are employed in the informal sector. Such policies should be further explored while taking into consideration realistic budget constraints and implementation capacity.

中文翻译：

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印度尼西亚非正规部门提供带薪产假的年度融资需求

在印度尼西亚，不母乳喂养的经济成本估计为每年 1.5-94 亿美元，是东南亚最高的。在印度尼西亚（15-49 岁）的 3,360 万育龄妇女 (WRA) 中，有一半是非正式雇员，这意味着她们是临时工或自雇人士（小规模企业）并由无薪/家庭工人协助(s)。目前在印度尼西亚非正式工作的 WRA 没有具体的生育保护权利。本研究旨在估计为在印度尼西亚非正规部门工作的 WRA 提供产假现金转移 (MCT) 的融资需求。所使用的成本计算方法是 Vilar-Compte 等人的世界银行方法的改编版本，遵循使用国家二手数据估算成本的预设步骤。我们使用 2018 年印度尼西亚全国社会经济调查来估计去年分娩的非正式工作妇女人数。覆盖的人口、潜在现金转移的单一成本、政策在时间和覆盖范围方面的增量覆盖以及行政成本被用来估计非正规部门的 MCT 成本。在 13 周休假的 100% 覆盖率下，MCT 每年的融资需求从 1.75 亿美元（152 美元/女性）到 6.69 亿美元（583 美元/女性）不等。每年融资需求的份额不超过印尼国内生产总值 (GDP) 的 0.5%。为在非正规部门工作的合格 WRA 提供 MCT 的年度融资需求在经济上具有吸引力，因为它不到印度尼西亚名义 GDP 的 0.5%。虽然这样的计划在开始时会被视为当前公共卫生支出的显着增加，但鉴于超过一半的印度尼西亚 WRA 工作人员在非正规部门。在考虑现实的预算限制和执行能力的同时，应进一步探索此类政策。