In this paper we use repeated cross-sectional data from Indonesia for the years 1986 to 1998 to examine two inter-related questions. The first one is whether the large increases in real wages that took place during the years of rapid growth as well as the declines in real wages during the economic crisis that begun in 1997, were distributed among workers equally or whether they were concentrated in particular groups of workers (males or females, younger or older workers). The second question is whether the large increases or decreases in wages rates were accompanied with higher or lower dispersion of wages or inequality within any given generation of workers.