Browsing by Author "Valodia, Imraan"

Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
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    Black Economic Empowerment: A Review of the Literature
    (Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS), 2021-09) Francis, David; Valodia, Imraan
    South Africa has the highest income inequality in the world. A recent report by the World Bank found the Gini coefficient of income to be 0.66, the highest of all 149 countries for which the World Bank has reliable data. In the workplace, this is reflected in vast inequalities in salaries and wages between high and low earners, but importantly between different race and gender groups. Despite a plethora of legislation aimed at addressing inequality in the workplace, women and black workers in South Africa continue to be paid less than men and white employees, even when doing the same work (the pay gap), and are more likely to work in precarious, low-paid jobs (occupational segregation). These factors are driven by differences in the characteristics of workers, and by structural discrimination in the economy. Conceptually, we can decompose structural discrimination into two forms – that which discriminates against people who do the same job, based on race and gender (the pay gap) and that which discriminates indirectly by occupational segregation – black people and women are concentrated in low-paying occupations. In this paper, we review the literature on occupational segregation and the gender and race pay gaps in post-Apartheid South Africa. We examine the various policy interventions that have attempted to address this enduring problem. In particular, we ask whether broad-based black economic empowerment – while not explicitly a labour market intervention – has had any positive impact on reducing labour market inequalities.
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    Estimates of Employment in South Africa Under the Five-Level Lockdown Framework SCIS Working
    (Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS), 2020-05) Francis, David; Ramburuth-Hurt, Kamal; Valodia, Imraan
    During the COVID-19 pandemic and response, an important question, from both a health and economic policy perspective, is how many workers are able to return to work as the lockdown is eased and tightened in response to the spread of the virus. Using a static analysis derived from industry subsectors, we estimate employment allowed under each level of the five-level lockdown framework. We estimate that under level five of the lockdown framework, 40% of total employment is permitted, or 6.6 million workers. This rises to 55% (9.2 million) under level four; 71% (11.8 million) under level three; 94% (15.6 million) under level two and 100% under level one. This is a static analysis and assumes that no jobs are lost as a result of a lockdown. As such, its principle use is as a distributional analysis of the share of workers permitted to work under each level of the lockdown.
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    Ownership and inequality: Policy interventions in South Africa and possible ways forward
    (Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS), 2022-11) Goga, Sha'ista; Valodia, Imraan
    This paper reviews some of the policies that have been introduced to address ownership diversity and broadening ownership. Policies like B-BBEE have gone some way towards doing this but not far enough. Considering ‘softer’ regulations e.g. in the form of incentives, could assist with expanding ownership especially considering new digital economies and informal sector workers.
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    Renewable energy, the just transition and inequality: insights from South Africa’s renewables procurement
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-06-21) Cassim, Aalia; Taylor, Julia; Crompton, Roderick; Valodia, Imraan
    Low- and middle-income countries across the world are facing the dilemma of needing to decarbonise and industrialise in the context of an electricity supply crisis. The transition from fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy is one of the first steps taken in any process of decarbonisation to address climate change. The energy transition is complex and holds significant economic risk. It requires strong governance and a capable state as well as coordination across government, community organisations and the private sector. This mammoth task requires the State to adopt policies that balance social, economic and climate objectives while reviewing past policies that may no longer be appropriate. This paper discusses the de-risking approach and the investment-centred approach to an energy transition, and using the case study of South Africa, argues for the necessity of an investment-centred approach to achieve a transition which supports local development and energy security. In analysing the example of South Africa’s Renewable Energy Independent Power Producers Procurement Programme (REI4P), we highlight important learnings for the energy transition, which provide a useful window into the wider carbon transition.
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    Social reproduction, labour markets, and economic change in South Africa
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023) Francis, David Campbell; Valodia, Imraan
    The South African rural economy, and its relationship to the industrial economic heartlands, has been the focus of study for many decades. In the 1970s, Harold Wolpe provided an incisive materialist analysis of apartheid. He argued that the rural economy served as a site of the reproduction of labour for capitalism in urban South Africa, thus ensuring a supply of cheap labour. His cheap labour thesis has formed the backbone of political economy analysis in South Africa ever since. But Wolpe, and other such as Mike Morris, who studied the relationship between the rural economy and the development of capitalism in South Africa, were largely unconcerned with the highly gendered nature of cheap labour, despite the fact that women were actively excluded from mining and the industrial economy by law, and played a critical role in the reproduction of life and labour in the Bantustans. Following the end of apartheid, the legal barriers preventing women from working in the main economy were dismantled, and women’s labour force participation rose rapidly. But this legal equality has not translated into substantive equality: women in rural areas continue to be significantly worse off economically than men. Unemployment rates are significantly higher for women, and they earn lower wages than men, even where they do the same work. Women continue to undertake far more unpaid work than men, and girl and women-headed households are more likely to live in poverty. Furthermore, despite well-developed literature on South Africa’s political economy, we know little about the productive and reproductive lives of rural women in contemporary South Africa. This thesis critically re-examines Wolpe for the 21st century by providing a materialist, gendered analysis of the economy of Agincourt, Mpumalanga, an area which remains on South Africa’s geographic and economic periphery. It shows how households in this part of rural South Africa are responding to the ways in which capitalism in South Africa has changed in the post-apartheid period. This thesis illuminates the important links between labour force participation, paid work, unpaid work, and livelihood strategies among households in the Agincourt area. It argues that focusing on the role of South Africa’s rural areas as sites of the reproduction of labour, as per the cheap labour thesis, ignores the highly gendered nature of social reproduction and its contribution to the reproduction of both labour and life. This thesis further contends that the role of South Africa’s rural areas cannot be investigated or theorised without a specifically gendered approach which includes women’s work in the analysis. It adds to our knowledge about an area of South Africa which is important in its own right. And Agincourt is also emblematic of the conceptual and methodological challenges of studying rural areas and their relationship with the economic 8 heartlands of urban South Africa in a way that does not marginalise the economic lives of women. It further contributes methodologically and epistemologically to studying the intersection of paid and unpaid work. It draws on a mixed-methods approach – a household survey of 600 households and 24 in-depth interviews – to investigate women’s economic lives in this marginalised place, and to re-examine the relationship between South Africa’s economic core and its periphery from an explicitly gendered perspectiv
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    The Inequality—Financial Markets Nexus: Implications for Developing Metrics for Voluntary Disclosures
    (Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS), 2024-01-21) Khan, Zoheb; Theobald, Stuart; Ewinyu, Arabo K.; Francis, David; Mogale, Etumeleng; Valodia, Imraan
    Can a disclosure framework reduce overall socio-economic inequality, or will it shift inequality somewhere else, for example, to other firms, other regions, or out of the firm and the private sector and into households? Are there material regional variations in the perceptions of the causes and effects of socio-economic inequality? What is the appropriate level of focus for an inequality disclosure framework? Surplus generated by workers accrues to the owners of capital and, at the most basic level, is a significant contributor to socio-economic inequality. There is also inequality in income between workers within firms and sectors. Furthermore, inequality is produced by access to and changes in asset prices, and by sovereign investing activities, among other factors. The correct unit of analysis for the proposed Taskforce on Inequality-related Financial Disclosures (TIFD – which since the original drafting of this paper has now converged efforts with new partners to form the Taskforce on Inequality and Social-related Financial Disclosures (TISFD)) deserves attention. The authors of this paper believe that regional variations mean that a one-size-fits-all disclosure framework is unlikely to be appropriate. For instance, the distribution of informal employment needs to be considered, with 61% of all global employment being informal and with as much as 90% of employment being informal in many countries in the global South. While disclosure frameworks matter for formal companies, what is often overlooked in the development of disclosure frameworks are the implications for the large number of people, particularly in the global South, who are informally employed or who work in informal enterprises. A second consideration is high unemployment given that the distribution of labour income is one of the great drivers of income inequality. Furthermore, the growth of precarious and non-standard employment, with the rise of platform work as an example, is an additional concern.
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    Towards a gender just transition: Principles and perspectives from the global South
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024-06-19) Cerise, Somali; Cook, Sarah; Lehmann-Grube, Katrina; Taylor, Julia; Valodia, Imraan
    A ‘just transition’ broadly refers to the principles, processes and practices used to ensure that transitions to a low-carbon economy are socially just. Gender justice, however, frequently remains marginal to mainstream debates and policies – whether about climate finance, technological solutions, corporate management approaches – or indeed most government transition strategies. This paper argues that ensuring a transition that delivers gender justice is both critical and urgent. Without explicit attention to, and clear prioritisation of gender justice across transition policies, climate change ‘solutions’ risk replicating or reinforcing structural gender inequalities. Examples of such risk include women’s continued limited access to economic opportunities, employment and social protection; their over-representation in precarious work; and women’s primary responsibility for social reproduction and care. Communities with few livelihood options and limited access to services rely heavily on natural resources to survive. These resources are vital to the provision of care and may be severely affected by environmental degradation. Care responsibilities expose women disproportionately to climate and environmental impacts. Women are the household members most likely to bear the burden of adapting to climate change. These realities reduce the likelihood that any climate transition can be just without a clear focus on the policies, strategies and implementation processes needed to achieve gender justice. This paper asks what a gender just transition could and should look like, particularly in the global South. Based on an extensive review of conceptual and empirical literatures from a range of disciplinary perspectives, we examine how different approaches address – or ignore – gender dimensions of (in)justice in thinking about low-carbon transitions. We go on to offer a more expansive view of justice informed by perspectives drawn from feminist theory, and combine this with the pillars of distributive, procedural, recognitive and restorative justice.