On Friday, September 8 2023, the FEB UGM Master of Science and Doctoral (MD) Program held an open doctoral examination in Economics for the promotion of Asih Murwiati. Secretary of the Department of Economics FEB UGM, Eny Sulistyaningrum, M.A., Ph.D., acted as Chair of the Session. Also present was Prof. Catur Sugiyanto, M.A., Ph.D., as promoter and Elan Satriawan, M.Ec., PhD., as co-promoter. In this open exam, the assessing team was Prof. Lincolin Arsyad, M.Sc., Ph.D., Dr. Evi Noor Afifah, S.E., M.S.E., and Dr. Evita Hanie Pangaribowo, MIDEC. The testing team is Dr. Ardito Bhinadi, M.Sc. and Dr. Rudy Badrudin, M.Sc. Apart from that, the open examination was also attended by the doctoral candidate’s family, work relatives and invited guests.
The open doctoral examination was opened by the chairman of the session and continued with the submission of questions by the promoter, co-promoter, assessment team and examiner team related to the dissertation written by promovendus entitled “Decomposition of Poverty and Inequality, Multidimensional Deprivation in Children and Extreme Poverty”. Promovendus Asih Murwiati was able to answer all questions and defend her arguments well and successfully passed with the title “satisfactory”.
Dissertation conducted by Dr. Asih Murwiati consists of three essays with the first essay focusing on the sources of inequality in Indonesia as measured by the regression based on decomposition method using household level IFLS data for two rounds (2007 and 2014). The model tested is an income generating function model which was developed into three models, namely income inequality, education inequality and health inequality. The second essay focuses on deprivation caused by several indicators of multidimensional poverty with a focus on children. The deprivation in question is a deficiency or backwardness caused by not meeting welfare indicators. Next, the third essay focuses on household behavior and patterns of movement out of the poverty floor.
The research results in the first essay show that in the three models tested, the social protection composite variable is very necessary in efforts to reduce inequality. Apart from that, inequality in the education sector is a very crucial problem and requires an effective policy solution. The results in the second essay show that the moderate deprivation group is the group with the highest amount of deprivation with a consistent pattern in each survey period. Then, in the third essay discovered that movement out of the poverty floor can be reduced by the level of education and household behavior.
Dissertation conducted by Dr. Asih Murwiati has made several policy contributions, namely evaluating social protection schemes which are known to play a role in reducing poverty and inequality. Furthermore, anti-poverty policies that focus on improving children’s welfare are also needed. This is because children are a group vulnerable to poverty. The policy must also include increasing human capital through children’s education and health as well as legal protection for groups vulnerable to poverty, especially children. The final policy proposed is an approach to financial inclusion and accessibility to basic services through multi-work units.
Dr. Asih Murwiati officially holds the 5927th doctorate degree to pass the exam at Gadjah Mada University and the 324th to pass the exam at FEB UGM. Prof. Catur Sugiyanto, M.A., Ph.D., as the promoter congratulated Dr. Asih Murwiati. He also expressed his congratulations on more contribution with the new title, hopefully it can bring progress in the academic field and benefit the wider community.