Working Papers http://hdl.handle.net/11090/965 2026-03-14T20:15:54Z 2026-03-14T20:15:54Z Lam, David Leibbrandt, Murray Finn, Arden Branson, Nicola http://hdl.handle.net/11090/1057 2026-03-05T11:15:29Z 2026-02-01T00:00:00Z

Why has decreasing schooling inequality not led to decreasing earnings inequality in South Africa? Lam, David; Leibbrandt, Murray; Finn, Arden; Branson, Nicola Inequality in education has declined substantially in South Africa since the end of apartheid, with inequality in years of completed education declining by all standard measures of inequality. At the same time, inequality in earnings has not shown significant declines, and has increased by some measures. Given the strong positive relationship between earnings and years of education, why hasn’t the decline in education inequality led to declines in earnings inequality? This paper explores this puzzle from both a theoretical and empirical perspective. We analyse how earnings inequality is affected by changes in returns to schooling when returns increase at some levels of schooling and decrease at other levels. We show that changes in the distribution of education over the 1994-2019 period would have significantly reduced earnings inequality in and of themselves. This was offset by disequalizing changes in the earnings-education gradient, including an increase in relative earnings for those with post-secondary education and a decrease in relative earnings for those with incomplete secondary education. The net result is a combination of decreasing schooling inequality and persistently high earnings inequality. JEL Classification: D310 (Income inequality), I240 (Education and inequality), I260 (Returns to education)

2026-02-01T00:00:00Z De Lannoy, Ariane http://hdl.handle.net/11090/1056 2025-09-19T15:29:39Z 2025-09-01T00:00:00Z

A generation on hold? Profiling the persistent crisis of youth not in employment, education or training (NEET) in South Africa De Lannoy, Ariane South Africa’s persistently high NEET rate, with nearly one in three youth aged 15–24 not in employment, education, or training, signals a generation on hold. This study provides an update on the scale, profile, and predictors of being NEET among youth, using nationally representative data from the 2015 and 2025 Quarterly Force Surveys and 2014 and 2024 General Household Surveys. The NEET rate has hovered above 30% for a decade and reached 34.2% in 2025, affecting over 3.3 million young people. The analysis reveals stark disparities by gender, race, age, education, location, and household income, with young women, Black African youth, those aged 20–24, those with matric or less and residing in low-income households at greatest risk. While most NEET youth are actively seeking work, many remain trapped in long-term unemployment, especially new labour market entrants, a situation that has become more entrenched over the past decade. Multivariate analysis confirms key predictors of NEET status, including age, gender, education, work experience, location, and marital status. The findings thus continue to underscore the complex interplay of multiple structural and individual-level factors that keep large numbers of young people socio-economically excluded. Despite decades of policy attention to the challenge, South Africa remains unable to reliably transition young people into sustainable income earning opportunities – and thus, out of poverty. The results confirm the urgent need to develop and implement an integrated, multi-sectoral approach that rigorously strengthens supply-side readiness, scales supportive and effective intermediation accessible to all young people and enhances demand-side incentives and responsibility. That approach should be able to provide support for the (often long-term) unemployed, recognising the need to remediate for scarring effects, and to bridge the school-to-work transitions through well-targeted, multi-dimensional interventions, tailored to diverse youth experiences. Without accelerated action to support youth onto pathways to sustainable livelihoods, South Africa risks leaving an entire generation behind.

2025-09-01T00:00:00Z Díaz Pabón, Fabio Andrés http://hdl.handle.net/11090/1055 2025-09-23T12:16:49Z 2025-09-01T00:00:00Z

The Maputo Protocol: International agreements and women’s rights as an enabler of development Díaz Pabón, Fabio Andrés; International agreements on human rights are development enablers. One of such vehicles is the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (also known as the Maputo Protocol), a pan-African protocol which aims to further the rights of women and girls- the majority of the population of the continent. The Maputo Protocol was adopted at the 2nd Ordinary Session of the African Union (AU) in 2003. The Maputo Protocol provides venues for the recognition and the realisation of women’s and girls’ human rights, with an intersectional lens that is cognizant of the needs and particularities of the continent. The achievement of any development agenda such as Agenda 2063 and the SDG’s depends on the recognition of the human rights for all. Thus, the affirmation of women’s and girls’ human rights by the Maputo Protocol becomes a critical instrument for enabling gender equality, central to the goals of Agenda 2063 and the SDGs. Yet, despite its relevance for enabling the progression of women’s rights, the translation of this protocol into local legislations remains incomplete. One important bottleneck for enabling the rights of women and girls remain the delays in translating such protocols into national legislation. We argue that the implementation of legal mandates such as the Maputo Protocol can provide pathways for the recognition of human rights in the continent, and that this legal recognition can facilitate the achievement of development goals. Given this, is central to take stock of the degree of implementation of the Maputo Protocol into national laws. Accounting for the degree of implementation of the Maputo protocol can provide a “contextual” assessment of the legal conditions in which the rights of women and girls are to be realised, and can inform development efforts and interventions for the rights of women and children in the continent.

2025-09-01T00:00:00Z Davidson, Katherine David, Anda De Lannoy, Ariane Grotte, Joanna Jana, Arindam Leibbrandt, Murray Nell, Andrew Visagie, Justin http://hdl.handle.net/11090/1054 2025-08-29T15:23:34Z 2025-08-01T00:00:00Z

The Impact of the Green Transition on Jobs in South Africa Davidson, Katherine; David, Anda; De Lannoy, Ariane; Grotte, Joanna; Jana, Arindam; Leibbrandt, Murray; Nell, Andrew; Visagie, Justin One of the key issues in policy discussions over addressing climate concerns the ways in which countries need to and can balance the combating of climate change with job creation and economic development. South Africa’s transition to a low-carbon economy is essential and urgent, as one of the largest carbon emitters among low and middle-income countries and a country with a heavy reliance on coal-based energy production. From the outset, an essential principle guiding this transition has been to ensure that it is just and equitable for all South Africans. However, it has been hard to give effect to this in practice; one important example being that achieving this requires acknowledging and addressing the potential regional disparities in the effects of the shift to a green economy. In this paper we seek to contribute towards an evidence base to ground such a discussion. We employ a comprehensive framework that combines bottom-up and top-down approaches to estimating ‘green jobs’ in order to analyse how the transition may affect workers in different geographic areas. To capture the spatial dimension of the transition, we draw on Spatial Tax Panel data using provinces and municipalities as our units of analysis. Given sample size limitations in the accompanying survey data, the specific findings should be treated as illustrative examples of how the framework can be operationalised. Even so, they do highlight the imperative to consider the likelihood of large geographic variation in the impacts of the green transition.

2025-08-01T00:00:00Z