Your labour may be unpaid, but it is priceless

This Women’s Month, as we celebrate the resilience, strength, and contributions of women, it is equally important to shed light on a form of labour that too often goes unseen, unrecognised, and uncompensated – unpaid care work. Unpaid care wor refers to the time and effort dedicated to supporting the well-being of others, often stemming […]

A Paradox of Plenty

South Africa’s food story is one of abundance shadowed by avoidable tragedy. Devastatingly, in this year alone, 155 children under the age of five have died from moderate or severe acute malnutrition as an underlying condition in public health facilities (Parliamentary Monitoring Group, 2025). As the most food-secure country in sub-Saharan Africa according to the […]

Who Gets the Last Drop? Understanding Fairness in Water Scarcity.

Picture this: Reservoirs are dangerously low, water restrictions tighten, and every drop becomes precious. In such situations, the question of fairness becomes unavoidable. Who should have access to water, and how much is “fair”? These are not just philosophical questions, they’re economic ones. As an economist and researcher, I’ve found that fairness in public goods, […]

The gender-wage gap in South Africa (blog 2 of 2)

In a previous blog, we discussed unconditional wage gaps in South Africa. As a refresher, an unconditional wage gap is simply the difference in average or median wages between demographic groups (say, for example, the gap between females and males), not controlling for factors that influence wages, like experience or education. As a reminder, unconditional estimates suggest that men earned approximately 36% more than females according to the 2019 Labour Market Dynamics Survey (LMDS).

Did inequality contribute to the recent political unrest in KZN?

Several factors were behind the recent violence and looting in KwaZulu-Natal. This blog investigates whether inequality, after accounting for other factors, was a likely contributor to the unrest. Overall, we find a positive relationship between inequality and the prevalence of unrest at the municipal level.

Demographic gaps in South Africa over time

Gender and racial inequality permeate the South African social landscape, even 25+ years after our democratization. This bias towards females and people of colour has inextricably created labour market tensions. Females and people of colour often earn substantially lower salaries for the same level of work. Even though affirmative action policies have been implemented across the country to some effect, not enough has been done to close the gap between earnings for people of colour and white individuals and separately for females and males. In this multi-part blog series, I look to discuss the gender and race salary differentials in the country, paying particular attention to the difference between conditional and unconditional wages.

Profit-led or wage-led growth; How income distribution influences the macroeconomy

“Income distribution dynamics and the macroeconomy have a very intimate link. This link is evident in many key macroeconomic indicators, especially when looking at how national production changes with changes in income distribution. As such, this blog tries to unpack the relationship between output and income distribution (measured by the labourer’s share of national income), and discusses its relevance to South Africa.”