753 research outputs found
Modelling Vulnerability and Low Earnings in the South African Labour Market
No full textDrawing on a comparative overview of the earnings function work on South Africa, this article presents an alternative and comprehensive model of earnings in the South African labour market. The paper uses the standard Heckman two-step approach in trying to model participation, employment and earnings
Wage premia and wage differentials in the South African Labour Market
No full textThe aim of this paper is to highlight wage trends and patterns in the South African labour market through examining wage premia and wage differentials. The analysis utilises data from the October Household Survey of 1995. Findings show that the regular race, gender and educational differentials arise when looking at median wages, with the racial wage gap being more severe than the gender wage gap
The South African Labour Market 1995-2004: A Cohort Analysis
No full textThis paper constructs a 'synthetic panel' from successive years of the October Household Surveys and Labour Force Surveys, and shows that new insights into the South African labour market are revealed when groups of individuals, defined by their date of birth, are followed from 1995 to 2004. Three main features of the South African labour market post-95 are highlighted. First, the age at which young Africans become economically active, i.e. transit from school into the labour force, is continually declining. Second, this increasing supply of labour to the market is not being absorbed into employment resulting in a growing pool of unemployed youth. Third, the proportion of the population employed is extremely stable over the ten-year period for all ages. These findings have implications for the future focus of labour policy as rising unemployment is primarily a consequence of increased youth participation and not due to a decline in the availability of jobs.
Labour Market Reform and the Evolution of the Racial Wage Hierarchy in Post-Apartheid South Africa
No full textThe central theme of this working paper is the way that the racial wage hierarchy evolved in South Africa over the period 1993 to 1999 amongst full-time regular employees of normal working age, but excluding those in the primary sector and the defence forces. We find that the transition to democratic rule in 1994 was accompanied by an improvement in the wage position of the majority African workforce relative to all other racial groups, but that these gains were not fully preserved through the latter half of the decade. The persistence of racial wage differences following the repeal of all overt discriminatory laws and regulations points to the need for concerted policy interventions to reverse the legacy of apartheid. We review the range of policy initiatives that have been taken by the South African Government since 1994 in the light of our empirical findings
Disability Grant and Individual Labour Force Participation: The Case of South Africa
No full textDespite the explosive growth in the number of people receiving disability benefits in South Africa, very little is known about the labour supply effects of the disability grant (DG). This study investigates the impact of disability grant receipt on labour force participation. Consideration is given to potential bias that may arise from unobserved confounding factors
Market Failure, Human Capital, and Job Search Dynamics in South Africa: The Case of Duncan Village
No full textThis paper argues that the economic literature on unemployment and poverty in South Africa has under-explored potentially important feedback mechanisms which, because they serve to change the structure of labour markets and affect human capital trajectories, serve to endogenise labour market exclusion
Contemporary Labour Market Policy and Poverty in South Africa
No full textThis paper outlines the recent labour market reforms in South Africa and discusses their likely impact on poverty and the working poor. Using an innovative framework developed elsewhere in the literature, the paper shows how labour market processes and outcomes can affect the level of household poverty in a country
Have Labour Market Outcomes Affected Household Structure in South Africa? A Descriptive Analysis of Households
No full textThis paper seeks to investigate how the demography of households relates to individual labour market outcomes. We comprehensively examine household size and structures in the October Household Surveys 1995, 1997, 1999 and the Labour Force Surveys September 2001 and 2002
Costing, Comparing and Competing: Developing an Approach to the Benchmarking of Labour Market Regulation
No full textThe World Bank's Doing Business survey seeks to measure and compare the costs to business of various types of regulation, including labour regulation. As such it is an important driver of labour market "reform" globally and in South Africa. It may also be encouraging a tendency of different systems of regulation to converge
Inflation Inequality In South Africa
No full textThe inflation crisis of 2008 drew greater attention to the varying experiences of inflation in South Africa and, in particular, to the fact that different groups within society may have significantly differing inflation experiences. The groups may be defined according to income level, but may also be categorised according to demographic, labour market and other characteristics
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