The economic crisis that began in mid-1997 had an overwhelming social impact on the Indonesian population, whose living standards deteriorated as the krismon increasingly affected their incomes. In examining this social impact, the present chapter focuses on changes in real household consumption expenditures, as they reflect actual changes in living standards and form a measurable proxy for income changes due to the crisis. At the same time, the use of consumption expenditures enables the evolution of poverty to be examined by tracking changes in the headcount measure of poverty.

The data used in this chapter are from the consumption expenditures module of the 100 village survey (Survei Seratus Desa or SDD), which was sponsored by UNICEF and carried out by Statistics Indonesia (Badan Pusat Statistik or BPS) in May 1997, August 1998, and December 1998. Survey covered hundred villages located in ten administrative districts (kabupaten) spread across eight provinces. The present analysis is based on three rounds of the survey.