In the late 1990s most Southeast Asian nations experienced substantial economic downturns that reduced social sector spending and decreased individuals' spending power. Using unusually rich data from Indonesia collected in 1997 (just before the crisis) and in 1998 (during the crisis ), we examine changes in the contraceptive supply environment and in women's choices regarding contraceptive use. Despite substantial changes in provider characteristics during the first year of the crisis, we find no statistically significant differences between 1997 and 1998 in overall levels of prevalence, in unmet need, or in method mix. Women’s choices regarding source of contraceptive supplies, however, changed considerably over the period. We link changes in the supply environment to changes in women’s choice of source of supply and find that a number of provider characteristics are significantly associated with women’s choice of contraceptive source of supply.

In the 1990s, the Indonesian government placed over 50,000 midwives in communities throughout the country. We examine how this expansion in health services affected children’s height- for-age. To address the problem that midwives were not randomly allocated to communities, the estimation exploits the biology of childhood growth, the timing of the introduction of midwives to communities, and rich longitudinal data. The evidence indicates that the nutritional status of children fully exposed to a midwife during early childhood is significantly better than that of their peers of the same age and cohort in communities without a midwife. These children are also better off than children measured at the same age from the same communities, but who were born before the midwife arrived. Within communities, the improvement in nutritional status across cohorts is greater where midwives were introduced than where they were not. This result is robust to the inclusion of community fixed-effects.

Iron deficiency is widespread throughout the developing world. We provide new evidence on the effect of iron deficiency on economic and social prosperity of older adults drawing on data from a random assignment treatment-control design intervention. The Work and Iron Status Evaluation is an on-going study following over 17,000 individuals in Central Java, Indonesia. Half the respondents receive a treatment of 120 mg of iron every week for a year; the controls receive a placebo. Compliance is monitored carefully. Results from the first six months of the intervention are presented for adults age 30 through 70 years. Males who were iron deficient prior to the intervention and who are assigned to the treatment are better off in terms of physical health, psycho-social health and economic success. These men are more likely to be working, sleep less, lose less work time to illness, are more energetic, more able to conduct physically arduous activities and their psycho-social health is better. There is evidence that economic productivity of these males also increased. Among iron-deficient males assigned to the treatment who were also self-employed prior to the baseline, hourly earnings rose substantially and so they earned more on a monthly basis. Benefits for women are in the same direction but the effects are more muted. The results provide unambiguous evidence in support of the hypothesis that health has a causal effect on economic prosperity of males during middle and older ages.