Mayling Oey-Gardiner (born 25 February 1941) is an Indonesian demographer who has written extensively about the gender dimensions of poverty, labour, and education.
[1][2] She was the fourth child of Oey Jang Hwat (later known as Darmawan Wibowo) and Ong Pik Hwa, a reporter with the women's magazine Fu Len.
[2][6] According to the newspaper Kompas, Oey-Gardiner began to focus on the gendered aspects of demographics after she was required to replace the sociologist Mely G. Tan at a conference in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
This enabled her to complete her doctorate in demography from the Australian National University in 1982,[1] with the dissertation The Impact of Migration on Fertility: A Case Study of Transmigration in Lampung, Indonesia.
[4] On 15 July 1998, responding to several days of rioting the previous May, Oey-Gardiner – together with activists and academics including Mely G. Tan, Sinta Nuriyah, and Saparinah Sadli – spoke with President B. J. Habibie regarding the need to prevent violence against women; the National Commission on Violence against Women was established later that year.
She further expressed hope that improved education would reduce gender biases and make equal opportunities possible in the labour market.
[1] At the time of her appointment, she delivered a speech titled "Mendobrak Langit-langit Kaca: Lambat, namun Tak Terelakkan" ('Shattering the Glass Ceiling: Slowly but Inexorably'), in which she challenged the claim that Indonesia was free of gender discrimination by exploring quantitative indicators of discriminatory practices in the country.