From Industrial Boom to Social Transformation: Labour Absorption, Inequality, and Partial Integration in Bahodopi’s Nickel-Based Industrialization
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.36574/jjpp.v10i1.841Keywords:
Industrialization, Resource-based development, Labour absorption, Inequality, Social integration, Partial integration, Critical minerals, Nickel downstreaming, Industrial clusters, Indonesia, Morowali, BahodopiAbstract
This study examines the socio-economic consequences of rapid resource-based industrialization in Morowali, Indonesia, with a particular focus on Bahodopi as the core industrial node of the Indonesia Morowali Industrial Park (IMIP). Situated within the global expansion of critical minerals and downstream industrial policy, the paper analyzes how industrial transformation affects labour absorption, inequality, and social integration at the local level.
Using a theory-informed descriptive and comparative approach, the study integrates multiple datasets covering labour market indicators, inequality, wages, education, demographic change, and sectoral output over the period 2013–2025. The empirical analysis identifies strong labour absorption, with employment and labour force expanding by more than 50 percent, accompanied by declining unemployment and rising formalization. At the same time, the Gini coefficient decreased significantly, suggesting improvements in aggregate income distribution.
However, these aggregate gains are accompanied by emerging structural differentiation. The findings reveal a pattern of spatial concentration, uneven human capital upgrading, and likely segmentation in labour market access. This divergence between economic expansion and deeper social outcomes is conceptualized as partial integration, in which economic integration advances rapidly while social and institutional integration remains uneven.
The study contributes to the literature by demonstrating that resource-based industrialization can simultaneously generate employment growth and declining inequality while producing new forms of structural segmentation. It also highlights the importance of institutional capacity in translating industrial growth into inclusive development outcomes. The findings have broader implications for industrial policy in resource-rich regions, particularly in the context of the global energy transition and rising demand for critical minerals.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Muhyiddin, Muhammad Dio Rhiza Amrizal, Fatoni Amirudin Akbar, Iqbal Faza Ahmad, Achmanto Mendatu, Johan Wahyuningrat, Agung Prasetyo
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This open-access article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Copyright © The Indonesian Journal of Development Planning
