Matthews, Thandiwe2022-12-212022-12-212020-12Matthews, T. 2020. Traversing the cracks: social protection toward the achievement of social justice, equality and dignity in South Africa. Future of Work(ers) SCIS Working Paper Number 5. Southern Centre for Inequality Studies, Wits Universityhttps://hdl.handle.net/10539/33900South 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.en©2020 Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS)Future of workersSocial protection systems in AfricaSouth AfricaCovid-19 pandemicGlobal and domestic socio-economic inequalitiesStructural inequality in South AfricaBlack African women in South Africa.Working Paper