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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).

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March 17, 2022

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.

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April 15, 2021

How does rural-urban migration influence subjective physical health outcomes?

DuringApartheid, black South Africans were not allowed to permanently relocate to urban areas, but instead were forced to retain ties to rural ‘homelands’. These ties led to the development ofoscillatingorcirculartrends of rural-urban migration. Today, these patterns of oscillating migration are still highly prevalent. While rural-urban migration is often associated with improved access to healthcare, living standards, education levels, and favourable employment opportunities, the migration process may also present new physical health risks. These risks may be introduced through the failure to attain either urban employment or adequate housing.The following blog reflects on the impact of rural-urban migration on the physical health of the sampled South African migrant group.

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March 18, 2021

Unpacking South Africa’s GDP and employment stats for early to mid-2020

Statistics South Africa (Stats SA), the country’s official provider of national statistics, is tasked with producing reliable data on a regular basis. The COVID-19 pandemic, and the related lockdown measures, have caused a severe economic contraction in 2020, but have also resulted in confusion over the degree of the pain felt by the real economy in the second and third quarters of 2020. This note briefly unpacks the method employed by Stats SA to estimate the reported changes in GDP and unemployment to better understand how the statistics office has arrived at these GDP and employment numbers.

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November 24, 2020

Using yearly data for responsible forecasting the impact of COVID-19 on real GDP and employment in South Africa [part 1 of 2]

Modelling macroeconomic trends across many African countries is extremely challenging, given the lack of up-to-date data available for public use. This modelling challenge is exacerbated by the uncertainty surrounding the magnitude of the economic impact of COVID-19. Instead of not modelling with this limited data, I believe that there is room to model innovatively and responsibly by creating a hybrid forecasting model that relies on a mixture of yearly data and literature. This model suggests that, in the worst-case, South African real GDP will decline by as much as 8% in 2020, and roughly 1.2 million jobs will be shed. These estimates from this model fare well in comparison to more sophisticated forecast models, making them integral tools for development economists wanting to understand the trajectory of other African economies with limited data availability.

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August 12, 2020

Preparing jobs for technological advancements

Digitalisation has undoubtedly created new industries accompanied by unique job opportunities. However, technologies such as robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) are rendering a significant proportion of the existing jobs obsolete. This blog discusses the potential impact of technology on certain high risk jobs, and suggests a public-private sector approach to maxisimising the opportunities brought about by digitalisation.

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December 5, 2019

The four-day work week – can it become a reality?

Working hours and their effect on productivity and wellness is by no means a new topic of discussion and debate. Prior to 1900, the average American factory employee was required to work 53 hours a week. This was only reduced to the now standard 40-hour work week after much protest by labour unions, and strangely enough has never been seriously contested since. Until now, that is. This article explore the potential benefits, and some of the challenges, of a shorter work week.

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February 27, 2019

Smallholder agriculture: job creator or livelihood provider?

Considerable effort has been directed towards combating high levels of unemployment in South Africa. Agriculture, particularly smallholder farming, has been identified as having significant potential to address South Africa’s employment crisis and food security challenges.

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June 6, 2014

Parenting and working

Having babies is a necessary part of sustaining economic growth. Without replacement labour force participants, its pretty obvious that economic systems would eventually grind to a halt. But the process of having a baby is incredibly costly – parents must lay out an enormous amount of time, effort and money to make a child into a productive member of the labour force (full disclosure: this is a topic close to my heart, as Truen junior is now just six months old).

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January 27, 2014
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2004

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projects completed throughout Southern Africa