1. Academic Wits Research Publications (Faculties submissions)

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    Platform work in developing economies: Can digitalisation drive structural transformation?
    (Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS), 2023-12) Cook, Sarah; Rani, Uma
    This paper discusses the expansion or penetration of digital economic activity in the context of developing economies, and what this may mean for economic or structural transformations for countries in the global South. We ask what possibilities new jobs and forms of work in the digital economy hold – in particular platform work – for the productive transformation of economies in ways that contribute to achieving the goals of human, inclusive and sustainable development. What are the impacts on work and workers in this process? The question of whether a ‘digital transformation’ can spur development and, if so, how and to whose benefit, depends in large part on the nature of employment created, and whether labour can move to higher-productivity sectors which raise incomes while also strengthening the capacity to finance public goods and services, including social protection. This paper provides a synthesis of literature and debates – conceptual, historical and empirical – linking work in the digital economy with ideas of ‘structural transformation’ and development. Our analysis of historical processes of structural transformation and of the conditions of work associated with contemporary digital platforms points to a range of obstacles to development and, in particular, the breakdown of links between skills, productivity, value and wages, limited capacity of states to invest in relevant infrastructure, and the concentration of capital with access to a global supply of labour. We conclude by considering policy actions that would be needed to direct digital economic transformation towards sustainable, fair and inclusive development.
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    Labour market transformations in the era of new technologies: an analysis by regions, gender and industries in Brazil.
    (Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS), 2022-11-15) Tessarin, Milene Simone; Morceiro, Paulo Cesar
    The impact of new technologies on the workers is the subject of intense debate. However, a deep analysis of the global South qualifying their regions’ inequality is rarely addressed. We evaluated the Brazilian formal labour market, unpacking disparities according to regions, manufacturing sub-sectors, and gender. First, we created a compatibility table of the occupation list provided by Frey and Osborne (2017) and the Brazilian occupations list to identify the occupations with a higher and lower digitalisation risk. Second, we elaborated a granular view of such occupations using different dimensions (five regions, 23 industries, three technological groups and gender). Third, we analysed the employment change between 2011 and 2019 to promote a comprehensive view of the drop in employment in the past decade. Results showed that most jobs in the Brazilian manufacturing sector are in occupations at high risk of digitalisation but that there is substantial heterogeneity regionally, sub-sectorally, by gender and for all region-gender-sub-sector combinations. The proportion of women workers is smaller than the proportion of men in almost all sub-sectors, but they are concentrated in labour-intensive, low-tech sub-sectors more susceptible to digitalisation. The employment drop between 2011 and 2019 was most significant in occupations with higher digitalisation risk and even more pronounced among women in all regions. Public policies need to be adjusted to the various existing heterogeneities in the global South. It is necessary to explore the synergies between educational, regional, social and science-and-technology policies to balance the impact of new technologies on formal jobs.
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    Cultural diversity, 'Living Law' and Women's Rights in South Africa
    (Cambridge University Press, 2013) Albertyn, Catherine
    This chapter considers the constitutional recognition of cultural diversity, especially as it is manifest through the recognition of customary law, and its relationship to the constitutional guarantee of gender equality. As the supreme law, the South African Constitution subjects all law (customary, common, and statutory) to the rights and values of the Constitution, including the primary democratic values of dignity, equality, and freedom. This chapter rejects the idea that the Constitution provides a “liberal democratic” framework that constitutes the basis for a “top-down” universalism that tests culture and custom against irretrievably external, liberal standards. Although the Constitution is capable of this, among other, interpretations, the chapter argues that the best – and most transformative – interpretation of the constitutional text is one that enables a deep respect for cultural identity and diversity and consequent recognition of positive cultural norms and practices, while also addressing cross-cutting, intragroup inequalities, such as gender. This interpretation recognizes that transformation under the South African Constitution requires courts to address multiple and intersecting inequalities, and that culture and custom – long ossified in official law – face particular challenges in adapting to contemporary political, economic, and social conditions. Although democratic and cultural values might be rooted in different contexts, South Africa’s history of colonialism, apartheid, and political struggles, as well as its socioeconomic development, mean that there is considerable common ground within and across communities for harmonizing customary law and the Constitution.
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    Substantive equality and transformation in South Africa
    (Juta and Co, 2007) Albertyn, Catherine
    This article considers whether ‘substantive equality’, as a transformative idea and legal mechanism in the South African Constitution, can generate legal solutions and court decisions that may result in transformative change. It does so by establishing a framework for analysing the ‘inclusionary’ or ‘transformatory’ effects of equality cases in relation to gender and sexual orientation. It argues that the idea of substantive equality is capable of addressing diverse forms of social and economic inequality, and that the legal form of substantive equality adopted by the Constitutional Court, emphasising context, impact, difference and values, has some potential for achieving meaningful social and economic change by and through courts. However, the manner is which the Court has engaged with this legal form suggests that the transformative possibilities of equality are constrained by a number of factors. These include institutional concerns, the capacity and willingness of judges to recognise and address the multiple systemic inequalities that still pervade our society as well as their ability to develop a consistently transformative jurisprudence that applies the ideas of substantive equality to the concepts and doctrines that underpin many equality claims.