Labour markets during apartheid in South Africa1

Anecdotal evidence shows that despite extensive restrictions on the hiring of African workers, these workers were increasingly employed in semi‐skilled occupations throughout the apartheid era. This article shows that White skill acquisition throughout the apartheid era reduced the supply of White semi‐skilled workers and led to the removal of job reservation, the process of reserving skilled and semi‐skilled jobs for Whites. Although job reservation declined, there is little evidence of a decline in racial segregation in the labour market. It is concluded that the transformation in the labour market was driven by White economic incentives rather than any evident change in White preferences regarding racial segregation.     

Labour market discrimination in the North West province of South Africa

This article provides an econometric estimate of labour market discrimination in the North West province of South Africa. Using data obtained from the October 1995 Household Survey, it was found that in 1995 statistically significant gender discrimination exists against women in North West's labour market. The male discriminatory wage advantage of 127 per cent and the female discriminatory disadvantage of 195 per cent were ascribed to the overrewarding and underrewarding of some personal characteristics of males and females, respectively. Productivity differentials of 40 per cent in favour of females and a premium paid to women measuring 71 per cent also exist. Discrimination explains 50 per cent of the wage gap between genders, while productivity differentials and the premium account for 13 and 37 per cent respectively. The study supports 'affirmative action' and suggests policies that aim to alter the occupational distributions, and these may need to target educational decisions made prior to labour market entry.     

The Impact of Health on Labour Force Participation in South Africa

This paper estimates the effect of self‐assessed health (SAH) on labour force participation (LFP) in South Africa. This is motivated by a high disease burden and declining LFP in South Africa during the study period. Data is sourced from the four waves of the National Income Dynamics Study. The results indicate a positive and significant effect of self‐reporting excellent, very good or good health on LFP (relative to fair or poor health). The effect is more pronounced for men relative to women. The result indicates that health policy can be a tool for significantly improving LFP in South Africa.     

Labour unions and wage inequality among African men in South Africa

One Achilles' heel of post-Apartheid South Africa is the growing intra-racial income inequality, particularly among Africans. This paper examines the role of labour unions in explaining this phenomenon among African men given that labour markets are at the core of income inequality in South Africa. Using cross-sectional data drawn from Labour Force Surveys for 2001–10, we find a monotonically declining union wage premium. Further, our results indicate that unions have both compressionary and disequalising effects on wages. The disequalising effect dominates the compressionary effect, suggesting that unions have a net effect of increasing wage inequality among African men in South Africa. This finding implies that there is scope for unions to reduce inequality through initiatives that promote wage compression.