Electronic Theses and Dissertations (PhDs)
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Browsing Electronic Theses and Dissertations (PhDs) by SDG "SDG-8: Decent work and economic growth"
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Item The measurement of decent work in South Africa: a new attempt at studying quality of work(2020-06) Mackett, OdileThe quality of work is central to the growing inequalities in Africa and the world. Central to concerns about the decline in ‘labour share’ is the notion of decent work. In 1999, the International Labour Organisation coined the term ‘decent work’. The purpose of the Decent Work Agenda was not only to establish a definition of good work which can be used as a yardstick for workers, but also to create unity among workers, governments, and employers. Since the development of the term, numerous studies have been undertaken on the quantifiable aspects of the decent work framework, however, almost each study undertaken on the topic has measured different aspects of decent work or limited its enquiry to certain aspects of the definition of the term. As such, no study has measured decent work in a way which is reproducible without the resources which are required to undertake a survey. The purpose of this study is to construct a decent work index, using an iteration of the South African Labour Force Survey. This is useful firstly to identify measures which currently exist in secondary data and it is secondly beneficial in identifying shortcomings in relation to the use of the Labour Force Survey to measure decent work. Using sub-major (2-digit) occupation groups as units of analysis, the study found that there is an expected pattern around how occupations measure in relation to their degree of ‘decency’, meaning that higher paid professionals tend to have more decent occupations compared to low-skilled workers in elementary occupations. However, the higher up the occupational ladder the occupation is, the lower they score in terms of certain indicators, such as decent working time, and balancing work, family, and personal life. Furthermore, the study finds that occupation groups often score differently when the indicators which make up the decent work index are viewed individually rather than as a composite index. These findings imply that operationalising the idea and practice of decent work to understand and address inequality is no easy matter, but that democratising work to highlight the needs and preferences of workers could be one step in the right direction. At the minimum, it requires some engagement with different aspects of decent work in relation to different occupations. Analytically, a more nuanced conceptualisation of decent work is preferable to simple wage-based approaches often utilised by organisations representing the interests of workers.Item The role of statistical numeracy in computational models of risky choice(2021) Werbeloff, MerleNumeracy is a strong predictor of general decision-making skill, and linked to differences in risk attitudes, such as risk aversion. However, the commonly used normative expected utility model assumes complete cognitive competence of the decision maker, and statistical numeracy is not considered directly in descriptive models of risky choice. These models are nevertheless used in policy-focused economics to assess individuals’ economic welfare, regardless of the effect of statistical numeracy. Thus, if model validity is dependent on the statistical numeracy of individual decision makers, resultant policy decisions may be biased. In an online quantitative empirical study, student respondents were categorised into numeracy groups based on latent mixture analysis of responses to statistical numeracy tests. Using the students’ risky choice responses to monetary lotteries, decision models were estimated using maximum likelihood parameter estimates on a subset of the data, followed by Markov Chain Monte Carlo Gibbs sampling methods for hierarchical Bayesian analysis. The results indicate significant differences between the numeracy groups on the utility parameter estimates, with risk aversion highest for low numeracy respondents. More complex models present identifiability problems. However, simpler models indicate successful outcomes in approximately two-thirds of in-sample estimates and out-of-sample predictions in the gain frame, based on parameter estimates specific to each numeracy group. The researcher proposes a numeracy-based modification to the models, citing the nudging and boosting policy initiatives of the behavioural economics literature as potential solutions to the presence of low numeracy and its effects on risky choice behaviour.