Coordinating Human Development and Culture Minister Muhadjir Effendy has suggested the country’s rich people should marry those from low-income families, arguing that such cross-class marriages can contribute to reducing the national poverty rate.

Muhadjir said that in Indonesia — the country with the world’s largest Muslim population — religious teachings on “looking for an equivalent match” for marriage had been often misinterpreted.

“What happened if poor people are looking for other poor people [for marriage]? There will be more poor households. This is a problem in Indonesia,” Muhadjir said in his opening speech at the National Health Work Meeting in Jakarta on Wednesday.

Citing government data, the former education and culture minister said the number of poor households in the archipelago was roughly 5 million.

“The number of Indonesian households is 57.1 million, 9.4 percent or 5 million of which are categorized as poor. If added to the near-poor households, it is about 16.8 percent or about 15 million households,” Muhadjir said.

“The goal is that after marriage, the couples will form economically stable households,” said Muhadjir.

The World Bank has recently reported that approximately 115 million Indonesians, 45 percent of the country’s population, have yet to achieve economic security and the lifestyle of the middle class.

However, it also mentioned that Indonesia had made progress reducing poverty over the past 15 years, pushing it down to less than 10 percent, and the middle class had grown from 7 percent to 20 percent of the population during the period.

Jokowi said in his inaugural speech in October last year that he had a vision to transform the country into a developed country with a gross domestic product among the top five in the world and a near-zero percent poverty rate.

I think he has a point. But connection matters

In Indonesia sha

Who else think the rich will only get poorer

Definitely not in Africa.

KiZiie:
Who else think the rich will only get poorer

You may be right to an extent... The rich will be dragged down by the poor and the two have to struggle to come up again.

When the rich marries rich, nobody drags anyone down. They both form equilibrium and grow exponentially.

Very dumb idea...

I hope he was misquoted. Cos that's definitely not a fool-proof strategy to eliminate poverty.

It is not even a strategy. Or maybe it is a 3rd world strategy. Who knows?