Low-waged and Informal Employment in South Africa (original) (raw)
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Employment and Inequality Outcomes in South Africa
University of Cape Town: Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, 2010
Creating jobs and reducing unemployment are key economic and social challenges in South Africa. This is explicitly recognized by the South African government, which, under their policy framework known as the “Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa”(ASGISA), aims to halve unemployment by 2014 by removing a number of constraints on faster output and employment growth. This report explores some of the linkages between growth, poverty, inequality and the labour market in post-apartheid South Africa. The ...
Are African workers getting ahead in the new South Africa? Evidence from KwaZulu‐Natal, 1993–1998
Social Dynamics, 2001
Excerpt] In this paper, we use the KIDS panel data to answer three questions about the 'progress' of African workers in this one province in post-apartheid South Africa. First, how have African workers progressed as a group? Secondly, which African workers have progressed the most, and by how much have they progressed? Thirdly, to what extent is the progress made by workers driven by transitions between employment and unemployment, or between informal and formal sector employment? We reach the following major findings. First, African workers in KwaZulu-Natal had quite diverse experiences, but experienced positive progress on average. Second, those who progressed the most during the 1993 to 1998 period were individuals who started the least well off. This is a surprising conclusion given the kinds of evidence produced from cross-sectional data. Transitions between employment and unemployment and between formal and informal employment have a strong impact on real earnings, but these real earnings changes are not always as we might expect. Additionally, the sizeable changes that take place for those who do not experience such an employment transition implies that dynamics within sectors also deserve attention. A more technical analysis, complete with a variety of caveats, can be found in a Report to the Ministry of Finance (Cichello, Fields and Leibbrandt, 2001). The purpose of this article is to share these findings at a less technical level and to highlight the necessity of panel data in answering these questions.
2019
South Africa ranks as the country with the highest income inequality in the world. Inequality of labour market outcomes drives most of this inequality. Labour market success (or failure) is a crucial determinant of where an individual or household is positioned on the income distribution. Furthermore, labour market outcomes in South Africa are characterised by a strong racial and gender hierarchy. Black women are on many levels the most disadvantaged with the lowest average earnings, highest unemployment, lower level of skill attainment, etc. They are consequently located at the bottom of this hierarchy regarding labour market outcomes. White men, on the other hand, are the most advantaged and are thus located at the top of this hierarchy. * p<0.1; ** p<0.05; *** p<0.01 Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za * p<0.1; ** p<0.05; *** p<0.01 Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za * p<0.1; ** p<0.05; *** p<0.01 Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za * p<0.1; ** p<0.05; *** p<0.01