The roles of women in Indonesia today are being affected by many factors, including increased modernization, globalization, improved education and advances in technology.

Many Indonesian women choose to reside in cities instead of staying in townships to perform agricultural work because of personal, professional, and family-related necessities, and economic requirements.

Despite their roles seeming to being reduced, if not rather confined, after the adoption of somewhat patriarchal cultures of Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity, women still hold important positions, especially within families.

Despite traditional values that hold Balinese women responsible for fostering balance and harmony within families and producing high-quality offspring, in a fast changing society, their economic role has grown.

The Minangkabau people are known as one of the few traditional societies that apply matriarchal and matrilineal culture, where property and family names are inherited from mother to daughter, and husbands are considered as "guests" in their wives' household.

[7] In Indonesian history, there are records of some prominent women that held and exercised considerable power and influence within their society, although usually reserved exclusively for an elite ruling class.

[11] In many parts of Indonesia, regulations compelling women and girls to wear the hijab are increasingly in place in schools and government offices.

[12] Aceh province has implemented Sharia law in full,[13] where all Muslim women must wear the traditional head covering known as hijab, and fraternising with the opposite sex outside marriage is banned.

[21] Forty years of violence against women in Papua province was explored in a report published in 2011 by activists Fien Jarangga and Galuh Wandita.

In certain communities of Indonesia, mass female circumcision (khitanan massal) ceremony are organized by local Islamic foundations around Prophet Muhammad's birthday.

[34] The more commonly prevailing national culture is the marriage gold (mas kawin) or mahar which refer to a gift provided by the groom to be given to the bride.

It may contain a sum of money or gold, sometimes because of the adoption of Islamic culture, also include or replaced by symbolic religious items such as praying equipment (seperangkat alat sholat).

[43] Many pregnant women in Indonesia do not have the financial capability to pay for hospital deliveries and birthing by Caesarean section, because of disproportionate salaries and medical expenses.

Such 24-hour nativity havens, mostly located in Bali and Aceh, help Indonesian women to escape the common practice of private hospitals in Indonesia that entails detaining newborn infants until medical bills are fully remunerated by the mothers.

After a surge of foreign multinational investors began investing in Indonesia during the 1970s, many Indonesian women became the "prime workforce" and a source of cheap labourers in manufacturing businesses.

[4] In the 1990s, some women in Indonesia, including adolescents and the homeless, resorted to engage in employment as sex workers and housemaids due to financial hardship.

[citation needed] In most major cities like Jakarta and Surabaya, educated female workforce tend to postpone marriage, and girls who finish secondary school are six times less likely to marry early.

These include economists such as Sri Mulyani Indrawati and Mari Elka Pangestu, Olympic gold medalist such as Susi Susanti and Liliyana Natsir, to activists such as Butet Manurung and Yenny Wahid.