Housing needs of migrant women industrial workers in Surabaya: insight from a life story approach

This study examines housing needs of migrant women working on an industrial estate in Surabaya, Indonesia. Information was gathered through a combination of household surveys and life stories. This article presents findings generated through the life story research. Such research places the initiative for what is brought out with the story teller; involves personal interpretation of situations and events by both the teller and the researcher; and promotes cumulative generation of understanding by the latter, through recurrent interaction and continuous reflection. The approach helped clarify the main factors influencing the migrant workers’ perceived need for housing. The women try to adapt by combining values and responding to expectations and demands of two different worlds: the relatively traditional rural community which they came from and the modernized urban society to which they migrated. This process of adaptation is analyzed through three main roles with related norms and expected behaviors: those of rural–urban migrant, young single daughter, and independent income earner. The findings contradict a main message from similar research, namely, that housing choice is primarily determined by price, reflecting a prime concern of the women with satisfying basic material needs. Instead, the choice was found to be much more influenced by a desire to respect norms and behaviors to which the women were socialized at home without excluding themselves from exploiting new opportunities in their present urban environment.