Health Workforce Production, Distribution and Quality in Indonesia

Executive summary

Debates over whether Indonesia's health workers are scarce or unevenly distributed are unnecessary, because both occur at once. This technical report shows that workforce density does not correlate with distribution, so a province can meet a density target while concentrating staff in only a few districts. It proposes a two-dimensional method, density per 1,000 population alongside a district-level Gini index, and a quadrant framework that separates scarcity from inequality to guide assessment, planning, and policy.

Questions this report answers

• Is Indonesia's health-workforce problem one of scarcity, or of maldistribution?
• How can both density and distribution be measured at the same time?
• Which provinces are worst placed on each dimension, and why?

Key findings

• Health-worker density does not correlate with distribution: a province can have adequate density yet concentrate workers in only a few districts.
• Indonesia's health workforce is constrained in both quantity and distribution, yet the Ministry of Health sets a target for density alone.
• The method measures density as health workers per 1,000 population and distribution as a district-level Gini index, where a lower index is better.
• A quadrant framework classifies provinces as Scarce and Inequal, Inequal, Scarce, or Ideal, distinguishing shortage from maldistribution.