| The Global Financial Crisis (GFC) is a knock-on effect of the financial crisis that hit the United states in mid_2008, rapidly growing into a global economic crisis and spreading to a lot of countries-including the developning ones-in Europe and Asia. In Indonesia, just like in other developing countries, the potential impact of the GFC was migited by the efforts on the part of the government so that it would not negatively affect the people's lives and increase proverty level in the country. The Statistics Indonesia has recorded economic growth deceleration in the country during the financial crisis although it is different from the one facing the country in 1998/1999. This study tries to analyze the transmission channel of the impact of the GFC on households through the labor sector in the selected areas of the Community-Based Monitoring Sytem (CBMS) data collection This study explores the possibility of the impact of the crisis on (i) factories and home industries; (ii) the changes in employment, incomes, and consumption; and (iii) the children's education in those areas. Combining qualitative and quantitative methods, the study was done in 5 out of 24 kelurahan-in which data collection was conducted-that were predicted to get affected by the GFC. There are 13,609 households spread over three kelurahan in Kecamatan (Subdistrict of) Pekalongan Barat-Kelurahan Medono, Kelurahan Tirto, and Kelurahan Pasirsari-and two kelurahan in Kecamatan Pekalongan Utara-Kelurahan Krapyak Lor and Kelurahan Panjang Wetan. The qualitative study found that, during the crisis period, some factories cut down on productions or even ceased operation due to declining demands on their product, rise of prices of mori cloth (unbleached plain white cloth commonly used for batik) and batik dyes, and change of factory owners or factory management restructuring prior to the GFC. Consequently, home industries that used to get sewing or batik-making orders from those factories had fewer jobs or no jobs at all. From the 13,609 households in the data collection areas, there were 389 households whose members have had to change professions or even lose their jobs, resulting in the drop of income; hence decreasing quality and quantity of food intake, change in healthcare patterns, and their children dropping out of primary or junior high schools. |