IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/sajeco/v79y2011i2p128-145.html

Youth Unemployment, Firm Size And Reservation Wages In South Africa

Author

Listed:
  • NEIL A. RANKIN
  • GARETH ROBERTS

Abstract

Youth unemployment in South Africa is high. We investigate whether one of the reasons may be that the wages young people want or need are above those that they could reasonably expect to earn given their characteristics. Unlike previous work on the relationship between reservation wages and unemployment we differentiate between wages in different sizes of firms. Larger firms pay more and thus, even if reservation wages are similar to average predicted wages they may be above wages that young people could expect to earn in smaller firms. We find that this is the case.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Neil A. Rankin & Gareth Roberts, 2011. "Youth Unemployment, Firm Size And Reservation Wages In South Africa," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 79(2), pages 128-145, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:sajeco:v:79:y:2011:i:2:p:128-145
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a
    for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Steven B. Caudill & Charles O. Kroncke & Franklin G. Mixon, 2021. "Is there a firm size‐wage gap after economic transition? – An examination of for‐profit and not‐for‐profit firms in Estonia," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 35(4), pages 435-449, December.
    2. Nicoli Nattrass & Jeremy Seekings, 2018. "Employment and labour productivity in high unemployment countries," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 36(S2), pages 769-785, September.
    3. Björn Nilsson, 2019. "The School-to-Work Transition in Developing Countries," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 55(5), pages 745-764, May.
    4. Precious Mncayi & Phindile Mdluli, 2019. "Why are they not looking for employment? A South African Youth Perspective," Proceedings of International Academic Conferences 9912247, International Institute of Social and Economic Sciences.
    5. Bhorat, Haroon & Hirsch, Alan & Kanbur, Ravi & Ncube, Mthuli, 2014. "Economic Policy in South Africa: Past, Present, and Future," Working Papers 180150, Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management.
    6. Nicola Viegi & Vincent Dadam, 2021. "Estimating a New Keynesian Wage Phillips Curve," ERSA Working Paper Series, Economic Research Southern Africa, vol. 0.
    7. Kim Engle & Cecil Mlatsheni, 2017. "The extent of churn in the South African youth labour market: Evidence from NIDS 2008-2015," SALDRU Working Papers 201, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town.
    8. Ferdi Botha, 2012. "The Economics Of Suicide In South Africa," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 80(4), pages 526-552, December.
    9. Nicola Viegi & Vincent Dadam, 2020. "Estimating a New Keynesian Wage Phillips Curve," Working Papers 11000, South African Reserve Bank.
    10. Haroon Bhorat & Tara Caetano & Benjamin Jourdan & Ravi Kanbur & Christopher Rooney & Benjamin Stanwix & Ingrid Woolard, 2016. "Investigating the Feasibility of a National Minimum Wage for South Africa," Working Papers 201601, University of Cape Town, Development Policy Research Unit.
    11. Derek Yu, 2012. "Youths in the South African labour market since the transition: A study of changes between 1995 and 2011," Working Papers 18/2012, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
    12. Derek Yu, 2013. "Youth unemployment in South Africa since 2000 revisited," Working Papers 04/2013, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
    13. Laurel Wheeler & Robert Garlick & Eric Johnson & Patrick Shaw & Marissa Gargano, 2022. "LinkedIn(to) Job Opportunities: Experimental Evidence from Job Readiness Training," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(2), pages 101-125, April.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J62 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Job, Occupational and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
    • J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

    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:sajeco:v:79:y:2011:i:2:p:128-145. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: https://edirc.repec.org/data/essaaea.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.