I try to be careful when people ask me whether tourism has improved life for local people. I cannot answer that question with certainty without proper research. What I can see is that tourism has created jobs that did not exist before, especially for women.
In the past, it was unusual for Balinese women to work directly in tourism. Now more women work in hotels and related businesses, while others have found jobs in garment production, home industries and manual work connected to tourism’s growth.
In 1991, I studied garment manufacturing in Gianyar, Tabanan and Denpasar. I found many small local producers, and most of their workers were women from those same areas. This new work offered women an income, but we must study the costs as carefully as the benefits.
Agriculture has clearly lost land and workers. In my own village near Singaraja, investors bought land for tourism and visibly changed the area. Eventually, local people began seeking work in the development that had replaced the land they once used.
Not every change comes from tourism alone. Prices and lifestyles are also affected by wider economic development. Still, Bali is expected to maintain the services and image of an international destination. There is now discussion about building an international hospital. I suspect it would be designed more to support tourism than to serve ordinary Balinese people.
Education has improved, but women are still much less likely than men to finish senior high school.
The statistics show the gap clearly. Around the year 2000, about eight percent of men could not read or write, compared with almost twenty-one percent of women. Universities have expanded and new graduate programmes have opened, but general progress does not automatically produce equality.
Much of the land in my village has now passed to investors from outside Bali, including many German buyers. The owners received what was considered a normal and fair price. But a fair sale price does not answer the larger question of what happens to a village when much of its land no longer belongs to the people living there.
Bali attracts people not only as tourists but also as workers, residents and investors. They all need somewhere to live, so housing construction increases. Social problems such as drugs, crime and prostitution have grown alongside that development.
Culture is being pushed aside even while tourism says it celebrates Balinese culture. My research in Kuta did find an important benefit: money earned through tourism has helped communities build temples and balai banjar, the halls used for local meetings and activities.
But I strongly disagree with hotels and restaurants using ritual objects and ceremonial clothing as decoration. These things have a religious meaning. I would welcome clear government rules controlling how they may be used in commercial places.
I also see changes within temple life itself. Some women and girls wear fashionable, partly transparent versions of ceremonial dress. The attention moves towards appearance instead of prayer. I am not against fashion, but a sacred place should not become another stage for it.
Young people are exposed to drug use, sex before marriage and abortion. These are no longer isolated stories. Yet it would be too simple to say tourism is the only cause. The questions I work on are older and deeper, especially the unequal roles given to women and men.
Why must the man always be the first to say, “I love you,” and take control of the relationship? We need to spread gender roles more equally.
Bali has a strongly patrilineal system. Men are expected to initiate and lead, while women are expected to wait and follow. Politics and public decision-making are often treated as male spaces. These ideas existed long before mass tourism.
I cannot change them all at once. What I can do is organise gender workshops in my community and encourage people to question the stereotypes they inherited. The government has made some progress towards gender equality, but a law or policy cannot quickly remove a cultural barrier built over generations.
Tourism has opened doors for Balinese women, but an open door is not the same as equality. We need education, a public voice and the freedom to decide our own roles—not only more opportunities to work in an economy shaped by others.