Arif Anindita (University of Milano-Bicocca)
Muhammad F.R. Wahyu and Muhammad R. Sanjaya
The 1965–66 anti-communist purge in Indonesia resulted in the deaths of an estimated 500,000 to one million people, leaving lasting social and economic consequences. This study examines the purge's impact on family formation in Java—the epicenter of the 1965 conflict— by leveraging regional variations in the Communist Party's 1955 election results as a quasi-experimental framework. Using the Indonesia 2010 census data and an event study analysis, we find a delayed decline in birth rates in Communist-dominated regions, emerging a decade after the conflict. This decline, driven by significant population loss and reduced marriage rates, reflects the long-term demographic and economic effects of political violence. Despite partial recovery through replacement effects and lower migration rates, the drop in births remains substantial. Our findings contribute to the economic literature on conflict by demonstrating how political violence disrupts family formation and demographic structures, with implications for long-term labor supply and economic development in post-conflict societies.