IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/rdevec/v23y2019i2p553-576.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Occupational segregation by race in South Africa after apartheid

Author

Listed:
  • Carlos Gradín

Abstract

This paper investigates progress in reducing the high level of racial stratification of occupations after apartheid in South Africa. Empirical analysis, using census microdata and Labour Force Surveys, does not provide compelling evidence of sustained or significant desegregation. Occupations remain highly segmented by race, with blacks disproportionally holding low‐paying jobs (compared with whites), although segregation and segmentation also affect in a different way the other population groups (Indians/Asians and Coloureds). Less than a third of the occupational segregation and about half of the segmentation of Africans (with respect to whites) are related to their characteristics, especially their lower educational achievement, a gap that has been reduced over time. Segregation and stratification, however, remain when blacks and whites with similar characteristics are compared.

Suggested Citation

  • Carlos Gradín, 2019. "Occupational segregation by race in South Africa after apartheid," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(2), pages 553-576, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:rdevec:v:23:y:2019:i:2:p:553-576
    DOI: 10.1111/rode.12551
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/rode.12551
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/rode.12551?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dani Rodrik, 2008. "Understanding South Africa's economic puzzles," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 16(4), pages 769-797, October.
    2. P. Allanson & J. Atkins & T. Hinks, 2000. "A Multilateral Decomposition of Racial Wage Differentials in the 1994 South African Labour Market," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(1), pages 93-120, October.
    3. Robert Hutchens, 2004. "One Measure of Segregation," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 45(2), pages 555-578, May.
    4. DiNardo, John & Fortin, Nicole M & Lemieux, Thomas, 1996. "Labor Market Institutions and the Distribution of Wages, 1973-1992: A Semiparametric Approach," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(5), pages 1001-1044, September.
    5. Paul Allanson & Jonathan P. Atkins & Timothy Hinks, 2002. "No End to the Racial Wage Hierarchy in South Africa?," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 6(3), pages 442-459, October.
    6. Derek Yu, 2009. "The comparability of Census 1996, Census 2001 and Community Survey 2007," Working Papers 21/2009, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
    7. Geeta Gandhi Kingdon & John Knight, 2004. "Race and the Incidence of Unemployment in South Africa," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 8(2), pages 198-222, May.
    8. Biniam E. Bedasso, 2015. "How Does Human Capital Shape the Social Contract?," Working Papers 46, Economic Research Southern Africa.
    9. Servaas van der Berg, 2007. "Apartheid's Enduring Legacy: Inequalities in Education-super- 1," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 16(5), pages 849-880, November.
    10. Feinstein,Charles H., 2005. "An Economic History of South Africa," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521850919.
    11. Donald Treiman & Matthew Mckeever & Eva Fodor, 1996. "Racial differences in occupational status and income in South Africa, 1880 and 1881," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 33(1), pages 111-132, February.
    12. Feinstein,Charles H., 2005. "An Economic History of South Africa," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521616416.
    13. Malcolm Keswell & Sarah Girdwood & Murray Leibbrandt, 2013. "Educational Inheritance and the Distribution of Occupations: Evidence from South Africa," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 59, pages 111-137, October.
    14. Martine Mariotti, 2012. "Labour markets during apartheid in South Africa," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 65(3), pages 1100-1122, August.
    15. Wittenberg, Martin., 2014. "Analysis of employment, real wage, and productivity trends in South Africa since 1994," ILO Working Papers 994847703402676, International Labour Organization.
    16. Mich Brookes & Timothy Hinks, 2004. "The Racial Employment Gap In South Africa," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 72(3), pages 573-580, September.
    17. Anthony Shorrocks, 2013. "Decomposition procedures for distributional analysis: a unified framework based on the Shapley value," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 11(1), pages 99-126, March.
    18. Allanson, Paul & Atkins, Jonathan P & Hinks, Timothy, 2002. "No End to the Racial Wage Hierarchy in South Africa?," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 6(3), pages 442-459, October.
    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. Koomson, Isaac & Afoakwah, Clifford & Ampofo, Akwasi, 2022. "How does ethnic diversity affect energy poverty? Insights from South Africa," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    2. Masa, Rainier & Khan, Zoheb & Chowa, Gina, 2020. "Youth food insecurity in Ghana and South Africa: Prevalence, socioeconomic correlates, and moderation effect of gender," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).

    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. Carlos Gradín, 2019. "Occupational segregation by race in South Africa after apartheid," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(2), pages 553-576, May.
    2. Rulof Burger & Rachel Jafta & Dieter von Fintel, 2016. "Affirmative action policies and the evolution of post-apartheid South Africa's racial wage gap," WIDER Working Paper Series 066, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    3. Rulof Burger & Rachel Jafta & Dieter von Fintel, 2016. "Affirmative action policies and the evolution of post-apartheid South Africa's racial wage gap," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2016-66, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    4. Carlos Gradín, 2018. "Occupational gender segregation in post-apartheid South Africa," WIDER Working Paper Series 53, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    5. Carlos Gradín, 2021. "Occupational Gender Segregation in Post-Apartheid South Africa," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(3), pages 102-133, July.
    6. Timothy Hinks, 2012. "Fractionalization and well-being: Evidence from a new South African data set," New Zealand Economic Papers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(3), pages 253-271, December.
    7. Kerr, Andrew & Wittenberg, Martin, 2021. "Union wage premia and wage inequality in South Africa," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 255-271.
    8. Daron Acemoglu & James A. Robinson, 2015. "The Rise and Decline of General Laws of Capitalism," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 29(1), pages 3-28, Winter.
    9. Fintel, Dieter von & Fourie, Johan, 2019. "The great divergence in South Africa: Population and wealth dynamics over two centuries," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(4), pages 759-773.
    10. Gareth Austin & Stephen Broadberry, 2014. "Introduction: The renaissance of African economic history," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 67(4), pages 893-906, November.
    11. Paul Allanson & Jonathan Atkins, 2005. "The Evolution of the Racial Wage Hierarchy in Post-Apartheid South Africa," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(6), pages 1023-1050.
    12. Carlos Gradín, 2020. "Segregation of women into low-paying occupations in the United States," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 52(17), pages 1905-1920, April.
    13. Timothy Hinks & Carola Gruen, 2007. "What is the Structure of South African Happiness Equations? Evidence from Quality of Life Surveys," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 82(2), pages 311-336, June.
    14. Abhijit Banerjee & Sebastian Galiani & Jim Levinsohn & Zoë McLaren & Ingrid Woolard, 2008. "Why has unemployment risen in the New South Africa?1," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 16(4), pages 715-740, October.
    15. Paul Allanson & Jonathan Atkins, 2003. "Accounting for the Persistence of Racial Wage Differences in Post- Apartheid South Africa," Dundee Discussion Papers in Economics 157, Economic Studies, University of Dundee.
    16. Jørn Rattsø & Hildegunn E. Stokke, 2007. "A Growth Model For South Africa," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 75(4), pages 616-630, December.
    17. Haroon Bhorat & Kezia Lilenstein & Morné Oosthuizen & Amy Thornton, 2020. "Structural transformation, inequality, and inclusive growth in South Africa," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2020-50, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    18. Carlos Gradín, 2017. "Segregation of women into low-paying occupations in the United States," WIDER Working Paper Series 089, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    19. Bhorat, Haroon & Goga, Sumayya & Stanwix, Benjamin, 2014. "Skills-biased labour demand and the pursuit of inclusive growth in South Africa," WIDER Working Paper Series 130, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    20. Fabre, Alice & Pallage, Stéphane, 2015. "Child labor, idiosyncratic shocks, and social policy," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 394-411.

    More about this item

    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:bla:rdevec:v:23:y:2019:i:2:p:553-576. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=1363-6669 .

    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.