IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ctw/wpaper/01054.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The role of education and fertility in the participation and employment of African women in South Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Cecil Mlatsheni
  • Murray Leibbrandt

    (School of Economics, University of Cape Town)

Abstract

Policy makers are well aware that creating jobs is an important priority if the health of our economy is to be preserved and improved. However, the first step towards a successful strategy of employment creation is an understanding of the labour market. Much attention has been devoted to analysing the unemployment/employment divide without sufficient attention being given to labour market participation itself. The aim of this paper is to add this dimension. Our focus is on African women, looking at the extent of the influence of education as well as fertility on their participation and employment. The first section takes a descriptive look at the relationship between education, fertility, and employment. We find that education is negatively related to fertility but positively related to employment. We also find that fertility and employment are negatively related. The next section tests these findings through estimating more formal models of participation and employment. Our conclusion is that education plays a significant role in the participation and employment of African women. However, fertility has an insignificant effect on participation of African women in the labour market. This is likely to be a result of the fact that African women are relatively poorer than the rest.

Suggested Citation

  • Cecil Mlatsheni & Murray Leibbrandt, 2001. "The role of education and fertility in the participation and employment of African women in South Africa," Working Papers 01054, University of Cape Town, Development Policy Research Unit.
    • Handle: RePEc:ctw:wpaper:01054
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/11427/7214
    File Function: First version, 2001
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David Lam & Robert F. Schoeni, 1994. "Family Ties and Labor Markets in the United States and Brazil," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 29(4), pages 1235-1258.
    2. Lam, David & Schoeni, Robert F, 1993. "Effects of Family Background on Earnings and Returns to Schooling: Evidence from Brazil," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(4), pages 710-740, August.
    3. Maglad, N.A., 1998. "Female Labour Supply in Sudan," Papers 30s, African Economic Research Consortium.
    4. Murray Leibbrandt & Haroon Bhorat, 1999. "Modelling Vulnerability and Low Earnings in the South African Labour Market," Working Papers 99032, University of Cape Town, Development Policy Research Unit.
    5. Mroz, Thomas A, 1987. "The Sensitivity of an Empirical Model of Married Women's Hours of Work to Economic and Statistical Assumptions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(4), pages 765-799, July.
    6. H. Bhorat & J. Hodge, 1999. "Decomposing Shifts in Labour Demand in South Africa," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 67(3), pages 155-168, September.
    7. Dilnot, Andrew & Duncan, Alan, 1992. "Thinking about labour supply," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 687-713, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Benhura, Miracle, 2007. "Determinants of South African Women’s Labour Force Participation, 1995–2004," IZA Discussion Papers 3119, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. David Lam & Murray Leibbrandt & Vimal Ranchhod, 2005. "Labour force withdrawal of the elderly in South Africa," SALDRU/CSSR Working Papers 118, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town.
    3. Nicholas Ngepah & Regina Conselho Mwiinga, 2022. "The Impact of Climate Change on Gender Inequality in the Labour Market: A Case Study of South Africa," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(20), pages 1-28, October.
    4. Daniela Casale & Dorrit Posel, 2002. "The Continued Feminisation Of The Labour Force In South Africa," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 70(1), pages 156-184, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Benhura, Miracle, 2007. "Determinants of South African Women’s Labour Force Participation, 1995–2004," IZA Discussion Papers 3119, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Omar Arias & Gustavo Yamada & Luis Tejerina, 2004. "Education, family background and racial earnings inequality in Brazil," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 25(3/4), pages 355-374, April.
    3. Olivetti, Claudia & Paserman, Daniele, 2013. "In the Name of the Son (and the Daughter): Intergenerational Mobility in the United States, 1850-1930," CEPR Discussion Papers 9372, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. Arnaud Dupuy & Alfred Galichon, 2012. "Canonical Correlation and Assortative Matching: a remark," Working Papers 2012/40, Maastricht School of Management.
    5. Hirvonen, Lalaina, 2006. "Intergenerational Earnings Mobility Among Daughters and Sons: Evidence from Sweden and a Comparison with the United States," Working Paper Series 5/2006, Stockholm University, Swedish Institute for Social Research.
    6. Nancy Birdsall & Jere R. Behrman & Miguel Székely, 1998. "Movilidad de la enseñanza intergeneracional y condiciones macro y políticas de enseñanza en América Latina," Research Department Publications 4145, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    7. Haroon Bhorat & Karmen Naidoo & Morné Oosthuizen & Kavisha Pillay, 2015. "Demographic, employment, and wage trends in South Africa," WIDER Working Paper Series 141, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    8. Nathan Grawe, 2008. "The quality–quantity trade-off in fertility across parent earnings levels: a test for credit market failure," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 6(1), pages 29-45, March.
    9. John Ermisch & Marco Francesconi & Thomas Siedler, 2004. "Intergenerational Economic Mobility and Assortative Mating," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 448, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    10. Yuanyuan Chen & Shuaizhang Feng, 2011. "Parental Education and Wages: Evidence from China," Frontiers of Economics in China-Selected Publications from Chinese Universities, Higher Education Press, vol. 6(4), pages 568-591, December.
    11. Lalaina H. Hirvonen, 2008. "Intergenerational Earnings Mobility Among Daughters and Sons: Evidence from Sweden and a Comparison with the United States," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 67(5), pages 777-826, November.
    12. Nathan D. Grawe, 2010. "Bequest Receipt And Family Size Effects," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 48(1), pages 156-162, January.
    13. Liu, Jin-Tan & Hammitt, James K. & Jeng Lin, Chyongchiou, 1999. "Family background and returns to schooling in Taiwan," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 113-125, February.
    14. Michael Kremer, 1997. "How Much does Sorting Increase Inequality?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(1), pages 115-139.
    15. Tano, Sofia & Nakosteen, Robert & Westerlund, Olle & Zimmer, Michael, 2018. "Youth-age characteristics as precursors of power couple formation and location choice," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 98-111.
    16. Gervan Fearon, 1998. "Monitoring Competitive Bidding in the Public Sector," University of Western Ontario, Departmental Research Report Series 9810, University of Western Ontario, Department of Economics.
    17. Behrman, Jere R. & Birdsall, Nancy & Székely, Miguel, 1998. "Intergenerational Schooling Mobility and Macro Conditions and Schooling Policies in Latin America," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 6084, Inter-American Development Bank.
    18. Nicholas A. Jolly, 2019. "Female Earnings and the Returns to Spousal Education Over Time," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 40(4), pages 691-709, December.
    19. Eiji Yamamura & Yukichi Mano, 2012. "An Investigation into the Positive Effect of an Educated Wife on Her Husband’s Earnings: The Case of Japan in the Period between 2000 and 2003," International Advances in Economic Research, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 18(4), pages 409-416, November.
    20. Paul Cichello & Gary Fields & Murray Leibbrandt, 2003. "Earnings and Employment Dynamics for Africans in Post-apartheid South Africa: A Panel Study of KwaZulu-Natal," Working Papers 03077, University of Cape Town, Development Policy Research Unit.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    South Africa: unemployment; employment divide;

    JEL classification:

    • A1 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ctw:wpaper:01054. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Waseema Petersen (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dpuctza.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.