Browsing by Author "Phalatse, Sonia"

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Land ownership, tenure and subjective well-being in South Africa
(2019) Phalatse, Sonia
The dual land tenure system, characteristic of South Africa’s land economy, is comprised of private ownership and communal land ownership presided over by a traditional council. This paper has two main findings in relation to land tenure in South Africa: owning land, compared to not owning land, and owning land privately, compared to owning land communally, has a positive, statistically significant impact on subjective well-being. Using waves 4 and 5 of the National Income Dynamics Study (NIDS) longitudinal dataset, a set of econometric methodologies is employed to quantify the impact of ownership and tenure on self-reported well-being using an ordinary least squares estimation as a point of analytical departure. To account for possible endogeneity stemming from self-selection and unobserved heterogeneity, an instrumental variable, propensity score method and Heckman’s ordered selection probit model is computed. A persistent positive effect of land ownership and private ownership on subjective well-being is found across the various estimation strategies. Further robustness checks are assessed to increase the internal validity of the main methodology; this includes a mixed effects and ordered logit approach that treats subjective well-being as ordinal. The estimated increases in subjective well-being ranges between 0.348 to 0.466 levels for landowners and 0.277 to 0.331 levels for private owners.
The Care-Climate Nexus - A Conceptual Framework
(2025-01) Phalatse, Sonia; Taylor, Julia; Valodia, Imraan
As is widely acknowledged and evidenced, climate change threatens food security and sovereignty; water availability, accessibility and quality; health and livelihoods. Where women bear the primary responsibility of unpaid care work such as food provision, water collection, and care for the young, sick and elderly, climate change disproportionately disadvantages them. This applies to the work of care and, more broadly, to social reproduction. Climate change thus contributes to an ongoing crisis of care, exacerbating the injustices associated with women carrying a disproportionate share of unpaid care. As such, fostering a value for care could be a means through which social and environmental inequalities are equally addressed in an ecological transition. This paper expands on the conceptual linkages of a care-climate nexus, with the aim of supporting climate policy.