Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management (Research Outputs)
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Item Budget 2025 Preview: Pressures and tensions along the austerity road to fiscal sustainability(Southern Centre for Inequality Studies, 2025-02) Sachs, Michael; Amra, Rashaad; Madonko, Thokozile; Willcox, OwenThis policy brief, ahead of the tabling of the 2025 Budget Review, considers the policy context and the fiscal and economic environment in which the Budget will be tabled. It considers the merits, limitations, and likely consequences of the government’s approach to budget policy over the medium term, as contained in the 2024 Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS), which redoubled efforts to consolidate public finances while attempting to promote capital spending. Since the MTBPS, several material expenditure pressures have emerged, some of which were flagged in the Public Economy Project’s (PEP) 2024 MTBPS analysis, and the economic outlook has been revised. Based on this, the Public Economy Project’s revised outlook for public finance finds that the government’s ambitious plan to stabilise debt over the medium term is unlikely to be realised.Item A panoptic view of the South African wealth tax(AOSIS, 2025-01) Ram, Asheer JaywantBackground: Wealth taxes are a topic of intense debate, with most countries having either abolished them or considered, but not implemented such measures. The South African government is contemplating the introduction of a wealth tax, purportedly to enhance revenue collection. Aim: This article examines whether the proposed South African wealth tax functions as a government panopticon, offering an alternative explanation for its introduction. It also considers the government’s transparency regarding the potential wealth tax. Setting: This article examined the opinions of tax experts in South Africa. Method: An interpretive approach is adopted. The traits of the wealth tax and the themes of the panopticon are identified and used as the row and column headings in a correspondence table, which serves as the research instrument distributed to tax experts. The tax experts indicate any associations between the themes of the panopticon and the traits of the wealth tax. Forty aggregated responses are subjected to correspondence analysis. Results: The potential wealth tax functions as a panopticon. It identifies and reveals relevant tax information about high-wealth individuals, appearing to coerce their compliance. Conclusion: There is credence to the alternate rationale for introducing a wealth tax in South Africa. Contribution: This is one of the first articles to apply the panopticon, a novel theoretical framework, in a tax context in South Africa. The findings are relevant to the exploration of similar taxes in other jurisdictions and provide a means for the critical evaluation of the motives behind tax policy decisions made by governments.Item Intersectionality in Action: learnings, challenges & recommendations from IDRC-supported research in the global South(Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS), 2023) Dawson, Hannah J.; Lynch, Ingrid; Mhlana, Siviwe; Mokhema, SeipatiThe call for integrating intersectionality into development research and practice has surged in recent years. Advocates consider it a crucial perspective for understanding the interconnected forms in which oppression manifests and is experienced by marginalised groups of people. This approach is seen as valuable in crafting targeted, context-specific policy interventions to address diverse social problems. Despite its growing prominence and alignment with social justice agendas, confusion persists about what intersectionality entails. Ongoing debates centre on its origins, purpose and distinctiveness when compared to other conceptual tools and transformative methodologies. Existing intersectionality research often prioritises scholarship from the global North, particularly North America, which overlooks the diverse realities and perspectives of the global South. It is essential to highlight that intersectionality, as both a concept and a way of thinking, was present in various feminist traditions in the global South well before gaining prominence in the United States and academic discourse. Given the lack of a precise definition for intersectionality, scholars and practitioners increasingly emphasise the importance of investigating its application in specific research contexts and practical applications. The collaborative initiative "Promoting Intersectional Development Research," led by the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS) at the University of the Witwatersrand and Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC), has provided an opportunity to interrogate the concept of intersectionality and critically evaluate its relevance for development research in and for the global South. The principal objective of this project is to “understand, inform and promote intersectional approaches to development research” across different programme initiatives of the IDRC. More specifically, the project aims to: 1. Document the diverse application of an intersectional approach in IDRC-supported research projects. 2. Synthesise the lessons on the benefits, limits and barriers of incorporating an intersectional approach into research, and identify opportunities and challenges for applying intersectionality to research dissemination, policy application and engagement. 3. Identify the needs for strengthening capacity among IDRC staff and partners to enhance understanding and facilitate practical learning about the application of an intersectional lens to development research. To achieve these objectives, SCIS partnered with eight organisations to examine their application of intersectionality in an IDRC-supported research project. The resulting case studies demonstrate intersectionality in action, exploring how diverse researchers and practitioners apply its concepts and principles. These studies reflect on the relevance and usefulness of employing an intersectional lens within diverse contexts and projects that employ a range of epistemological and methodological approaches. They offer insights into both the alignment and tensions associated with adopting an intersectional lens.Item What’s the deal? women’s evidence and gendered negotiations(Springer, 2018-11) Bonthuys, ElsjeSouth African law has traditionally denied property sharing rights to people in nonmarital intimate partnerships, but a series of new cases has created the possibility of enforcing universal partnership contracts to claim a share in partnership property.However, evidential biases within these progressive cases reflect a historical disdain for women’s contributions to relationships and a widespread reluctance to believe women’s testimony about the existence of agreements to share. These biases bear strong resemblances to the gender stereotypes which have been the subject of feminist critique in rape law. Central to both rape and universal partnerships is the issue of consent or agreement between men and women. This, in turn, depends on social beliefs about male and female entitlements in the realms of sex and intimate relationships. The paper highlights the commonalities and parallels between the legal treatment of women’s evidence about the existence of contracts on the one hand, and the prejudice faced by complainants in rape cases.Item The Effects of Public Investment in the Green and Care Economies and Public Infrastructure in South Africa(2024) Onaran, Ozlem; Oyvat, CemThis paper argues that a comprehensive mix of policy tools is essential to catalyse the urgent public investment required to address South Africa's growth, inequality, care, and climate change crises. According to the National Treasury, from 2010 to 2019, South Africa's growth averaged only 1.75% annually, a figure further reduced when factoring in the COVID-19-impacted years of 2020 and 2021. Fiscal policy involves decisions regarding government spending levels, tax revenue generation, and borrowing. Since 2013, a fiscal consolidation strategy has been in place to curb public spending growth, resulting in decreased expenditures on public services due to rising debt service costs. This paper argues that increasing public spending on the care economy, green economy, and public infrastructure would boost GDP and employment, thereby altering public debt/GDP ratios. It advocates expansionary fiscal policies, clear development targets, and coordinated fiscal, monetary, industrial, labour, and social policies.Item Macro Fiscal Review: Reflections on public finances ahead of the 2024 Budget Review(Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS), 2024-02) Amra, Rashaad; Sachs, Michael; Willcox, Owen; Madonko, ThokozileThis policy note, published before the 2024 Budget Review tabling, reviews global and domestic economic developments and fiscal developments since the 2023 Budget Review and Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) were tabled. It considers the implications of these developments for public finances and the realisation of the state’s socioeconomic goals. This note discusses emerging expenditure pressures observed in the recent period, which would warrant government to consider in its formulation of the upcoming budget. It assesses government’s key fiscal projections presented in the 2023 MTBPS and Budget Review. And it presents the Public Economy Project’s own updated outlook for public finances – it incorporates updated economic and fiscal data, and adjusted expenditure assumptions. It further discusses the limitations of government’s current approach to fiscal policy, and presents possible adjustments that would allow for a more equitable and sustainable path for public finances.Item Traversing the cracks: social protection toward the achievement of social justice, equality and dignity in South Africa(Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS), 2020-12) Matthews, ThandiweSouth Africa has one of the most expansive social protection systems in Africa, yet it remains one of the most unequal countries in the world. The sudden onslaught of the Covid-19 pandemic has laid bare the devastating impact of deep global and domestic socio-economic inequalities, and the political, economic and social implications thereof. This paper explores how the conceptualisation and implementation of social protection policies can serve to simultaneously confront and reproduce the sources of power that sustain structural inequality in South Africa. Through an interdisciplinary lens, the research probes the gendered nexus between social policy and constitutionally protected socio economic rights to elucidate how multiple forms of discrimination perpetuate the exclusion of historically marginalised groups, and particularly black African women, in post-1994 democratic South Africa. Although social protection programmes have saved millions of households from falling deeper into poverty, the level of social grants is insufficient to meet households’ reproductive needs and undermines their very objectives. At the same time, the digitalisation of cash transfers coupled with the ‘marketisation of governance’ (Taylor, 2000) has trapped grant beneficiaries in relations of credit and debt. The paper concludes that comprehensive social protection requires an approach that is not only efficient and pragmatic but is substantively inclusive, equitable and participatory, with the aim of dismantling relations of power that reproduce structural inequalities. However, social protection alone cannot address the complexity of challenges associated with structural inequality, and must be linked to labour market policies geared at improving the conditions of work for black African women in South Africa.Item Black Economic Empowerment: A Review of the Literature(Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS), 2021-09) Francis, David; Valodia, ImraanSouth 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.Item Subjective well-being impact of old age pension in South Africa: A difference in difference analysis across the gender divide(AOSIS (pty) Ltd, 2019-12-06) Kollamparambil, Umakrishnan; Etinzock, Mfongeh, NBackground: South Africa provides old age pension (OAP), a non-contributory means-tested income transfer to persons aged 60 and above. More than two-thirds of the elderly population report receiving the OAP. Women have historically had a lower pension eligibility age of 60, while the eligibility of men decreased from 65 to 60 between 2008 and 2010. Aim: This study analyses the impact of the OAP on the subjective well-being of the elderly in South Africa. The study aims at understanding the differential impact on the subjective wellbeing of male and female recipients. Methods: The study adopts the difference in difference (DiD) impact evaluation framework to establish the impact of OAP using a sub-sample of data for elderly persons aged between 55 and 64, collected from the first four waves of the National Income Dynamics study. Linear and non-linear DiD models are estimated as robustness checks given the ordinal nature of the dependent variable. Results: The OAP variable consistently produced positive and significant estimates for the sample as a whole. Further, anticipatory effect of OAP was not found to exist. A gender specific analysis indicates that female recipients have a positive and significant change in well-being as a result of OAP, while male recipients did not. Conclusion: The difference in the well-being impact of OAP between male and female recipients can be attributed to the gender difference in the use and meaning of pensions. Our findings question the uniform criteria introduced for male and female recipients for OAP in South Africa.Item An exploratory perspective of student performance and access to resources(Mediterranean Center of Social and Educational Research, 2014-11-01) Papageorgiou, E; Callaghan, C.WThis research investigated the relationships between potential constraints to students’ access to technological resources and student academic performance. Longitudinal data from 2010 (n=228), 2011 (n=340) and 2012 (n=347) from South African accounting students was used to test the relationships between technological resources access and student academic performance using correlation analysis, multiple linear regression analysis and factor analysis. Access to the latest software was found to be associated with student academic performance; a ‘digital divide’ between students may influence their academic performance. This research specifically identifies certain constraints potentially associated with a ‘digital divide’ that may influence student performance.