Electronic Theses and Dissertations (Masters)

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    Depression and Disability in the Workplace
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Barnes, Tracey-Lee Ursula; Futter, Dylan
    South African law prohibits unfair discrimination against people with disabilities and the law recognizes mental illness as a form of disability. It follows that it is impermissible to discriminate against people on the basis of mental illness. In this essay, I unpack the philosophical and ethical underpinnings of this claim, specifically in regard to depression. What complicates the question of discrimination on the basis of mental illness is the fact that not all discrimination is unfair, and one can justly remove people from jobs when they cannot perform these jobs to a required level. This seems to imply that it might be fair to discriminate against depressed employees when they cannot do their jobs on account of depression. The duty not to discriminate against people on the basis of disability includes a positive duty to provide reasonable accommodations that will help them to do their jobs. Just as employers are obligated to help those who cannot walk to access their places of work, something similar is true of depression. But what does it mean to accommodate depression? In this research report, I go beyond the status quo and introduce positive suggestions for how reasonable accommodation can work for depressed employees. This will be to offer an account of how the workplace ought to be restructured in order for employers to fulfil their legal and moral duties not to discriminate against people with the disability of depression. In particular, I argue that a person who suffers with depression would be in a better position to fulfil his job role, on the same level as other employees, if employers drove a culture of inclusion and dismantled the stigma that surrounds mental illness.
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    South Africa’s Economic Foreign Policy: A Study of Slow Maturation
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-10) Nemalili, Lusani; Gwatiwa, Tshepo
    In the international environment, all state relations are guided by a foreign policy that conveys what a state intends to achieve through its relations with other states. Foreign policy is the means used to express a state’s national interests internationally to other states whilst executing on its domestic policy making, strategies and decisions. Therefore, foreign policy is the translation of domestic national interests to an international audience for engagement. However, national interests vary according to what the state aims to fulfil abroad. They could be economic, social, security, political interests. Nevertheless, it remains critical that economic interests have always dominated the international relations arena. Thus, a convergence of foreign policy and domestic economic policy of a state are crucial for its international success that contributes to its economic growth within and beyond its borders. This convergence produces an economic foreign policy. An economic foreign policy then guides the decisions of policymakers and diplomatic practices of the state bureaucracy in achieving the state’s national interests abroad. The presence of an economic foreign policy in a state is important because decisions that different actors (state and non-state) make in the international environment have to be accounted for and guided by a policy in order to understand the reasoning and logic behind them. The absence of an economic foreign policy enables a state to operate on an ad hoc decision-making basis in the international environment and with outcomes whose impact cannot be measured nor monitored by the state itself or other states intending to form economic relations with it. South Africa, with its economic interests, goals and a foreign policy, has not yet produced a coherent, codified and well-expressed economic foreign policy for an international audience. Whilst the country has relevant actors and the right processes to produce an economic foreign policy, it has not brought one into maturity through the consolidation and unification of foreign and economic policies of the state. This is due to several domestic conditions in policy making, decisions and processes that prohibit the realisation of an economic foreign policy. It is in these domestic foreign and economic policy making environments that the enquiry of this study is found to reveal the reasons why South Africa has not had a matured economic foreign policy since the new democratic dispensation of 1994.
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    A Contractarian Conception Of The Basic Income Grant: General And South African Considerations
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-10) Mc Lean, Jordan; Glaser, Daryl
    This academic report proposes an additional moral argument for implementing a basic income grant (BIG) within the framework of the social contract in South Africa. The analysis aims to establish whether there are implicit obligations on the part of the state to provide all citizens with access to social assistance. The report ascertains what moral obligations the state has towards its citizens by exploring social contract theory. The report also analyses the South African case more closely, arguing that state obligation to provide social assistance to all citizens can be found in the Constitution and in the objectives of the social. The research report offers reflections regarding how the South African state attempts to satisfy these obligations through a discussion on some of the government’s social and economic policies. The reflections argue that while the state recognises this moral obligation, it follows the structurally unviable policy position that wage employment can satisfy the social contract for the working aged population. The report investigates the nexus between the social contract and basic income, arguing that the social contract makes the provision of social assistance a moral requirement of the state and thus a basic income grant is necessary, especially in the South Africa case where a large number of working age people have no social assistance access and face high rates of structural unemployment. The report undertakes document analysis of relevant literature, government policy proposals and development programmes to achieve this objective. Ultimately, this report contributes to the understanding of the post-Apartheid social contract, the politics of the welfare system, and the discourse surrounding basic income grants.
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    What is ‘Black Tax’? : A Study of the Experiences and Understandings of ‘Black Tax’ amongst Young Black Professionals in South Africa
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2022-07) Dube, Luthando Nolwazi; Ally, Shireen
    ‘Black Tax’ is a colloquial term used to refer to a system of extended kinship support which is prevalent in Black communities in South Africa. South Africa is a country characterised by high levels of racial inequality and unemployment, due to an extended history of European colonisation, apartheid, and their long-lasting effects. In this context, Black South Africans having a regular source of income has become rare enough to be considered a ‘privilege’ and for young Black professionals in particular, it comes with the responsibility to care for their families, both immediate and extended. As a result, young Black professionals have been described as the ‘sandwich generation’, stuck between supporting both present and past generations due to greater access to education and opportunities. This study sought to explore how young Black professionals experience and understand ‘Black Tax’ in South Africa. The study looked into the different ways in which Black professionals provide support and additionally, whether there is an expectation of such support, and how it is experienced and understood by them as the givers. A qualitative research approach formed the basis of this study, based on semi-structured, non-contact telephonic interviews with eight young Black professionals identified through the snowball sampling technique. Some results from this study found that young Black professionals narrate ‘Black Tax’ both as an obligatory expectation, and also as they frame it, as an extension of Ubuntu. The study demonstrates how ‘Black Tax’ consists of mainly two things: debt and obligations of reciprocity (paying back) and thanksgiving; or the expectation as a result of having experienced similar kindness (paying forward). ‘Black Tax’ is not limited to financial contributions alone and young Black professionals have categorised their ‘Black Tax’ to include mainly shared assets, financial, non-financial, and voluntary acts and not limited to emotional support. The findings suggest that young Black professionals in this study understand the context in which ‘Black Tax’ exists in South Africa and that their experience of it is shaped by the social standing of their families, which influences the manner in which they engage in the practice of ‘Black Tax’. Furthermore, although young Black professionals experience ‘Black Tax’ in different ways, it is clear that they face the same racialised experience; they thus have a unified Black experience (shared experience).