Spatially Informed Insights: Modeling Percentage Poverty in East Java Province Using Sem With Spatial Weight Variations

The East Java Province stands as one of Indonesia's regions grappling with a notably elevated poverty rate, accounting for 11.32% of the populace. A strategic approach employed to comprehend and redress this issue involves the application of spatial analysis, wherein spatial factors are intricately integrated into the modeling and cartographic representation of poverty data. The primary objective of this research is to discern the principal determinants influencing the incidence of poverty in East Java Province, employing data reflective of the population's poverty percentages within the province for the year 2021. The study incorporates six pivotal variables, namely: the population poverty rate, open unemployment rate, labor force participation rate, average years of schooling, adjusted per capita expenditure, and the gross regional domestic product (GRDP), predicated on adjusted expenditure. Diverse weighting schemes are applied based on both distance (1) and contiguity (2). The optimal predictive model utilized is the Spatial Error Model (SEM) incorporating a Distance Band Weighing (DBW) mechanism with a designated maximum distance ( ) of 75000 meters. Outcomes indicate that the variable wielding the most substantial influence on the poverty percentage in East Java Province is the average years of schooling. Specifically, an increase in the pursuit of formal education manifests as a negative correlate to the poverty percentage, implying an inverse relationship. Moreover, the SEM model adheres to the requisite assumptions, encompassing (1) the normality of residuals, (2) homogeneity of residuals, and (3) non-spatial autocorrelation of residuals. Comparative analyses reveal that the SEM model utilizing DBW yields diminished values for MAE, MSE, RMSE, AIC, and MAPE in comparison to its linear regression counterpart. Furthermore, the pseudo- values obtained from the SEM surpass those derived from the linear regression model. Rigorous likelihood ratio tests underscore substantial disparities between the SEM and linear regression models, with the former proving more efficient and markedly enhancing the model's explanatory prowess concerning variations in the dataset.