IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ldr/cssrwp/118.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Labour force withdrawal of the elderly in South Africa

Author

Listed:
  • David Lam

    (Economics Department, University of Michigan)

  • Murray Leibbrandt

    (SALDRU, School of Economics, University of Cape Town)

  • Vimal Ranchhod

    (School of Economics, University of Cape Town)

Abstract

This paper analyses labour market behaviour of the elderly in South Africa, focusing on the Black/African population group. The analysis uses data from the 2001 census and 1996 census, the Labour Force Surveys for September 2000 and 2001, and the Income and Expenditure Survey for 2000. Findings show that participation rates fall fairly rapidly after age 45, with particularly sharp declines in both participation and work at the age of eligibility for the old-age pension. Measures of unused productive capacity demonstrate that South Africa's age profile of labour force withdrawal compares favourably with some OECD countries. The hazard rate indicates that the age of pension eligibility is associated with increased rates of retirement. The paper also examines major determinants of elderly labour supply, including household structure and marital status, public and private pensions and schooling and, finally, calculates probit regressions to gain a clearer picture of the variables affecting the work activity of the elderly.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:ldr:cssrwp:118
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.opensaldru.uct.ac.za/handle/11090/664
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Martin Wittenberg, 2005. "The school day in South Africa," SALDRU/CSSR Working Papers 113, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town.
    2. Lawrence Schlemmer & Valerie Møller, 1997. "The Shape of South African Society and its Challenges," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 41(1), pages 15-50, July.
    3. Jensen, Robert T., 2004. "Do private transfers 'displace' the benefits of public transfers? Evidence from South Africa," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(1-2), pages 89-112, January.
    4. Case, Anne & Deaton, Angus, 1998. "Large Cash Transfers to the Elderly in South Africa," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(450), pages 1330-1361, September.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. Peracchi, Franco & Welch, Finis, 1994. "Trends in Labor Force Transitions of Older Men and Women," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 12(2), pages 210-242, April.
    8. Marianne Bertrand & Sendhil Mullainathan & Douglas Miller, 2003. "Public Policy and Extended Families: Evidence from Pensions in South Africa," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 17(1), pages 27-50, June.
    9. Arie Kapteyn & Klaas de Vos, 1999. "Social Security and Retirement in the Netherlands," NBER Chapters, in: Social Security and Retirement around the World, pages 269-303, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Edmonds, Eric V., 2006. "Child labor and schooling responses to anticipated income in South Africa," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 386-414, December.
    11. Johannes Fedderke & Chandana Kularatne & Martine Mariotti, 2007. "Mark-up Pricing in South African Industry," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 16(1), pages 28-69, January.
    12. Mwabu, Germano & Schultz, T Paul, 1996. "Education Returns across Quantiles of the Wage Function: Alternative Explanations for Returns to Education by Race in South Africa," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(2), pages 335-339, May.
    13. 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.
    14. Valerie Møller & Richard Devey, 2003. "Trends in living conditions and satisfaction among poorer older South Africans: objective and subjective indicators of quality of life in the October Household Survey," Development Southern Africa, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(4), pages 457-476.
    15. Clark, Robert L & Anker, Richard, 1993. "Cross-national Analysis of Labor Force Participation of Older Men and Women," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 41(3), pages 489-512, April.
    16. Jonathan Gruber & David A. Wise, 1999. "Social Security and Retirement around the World," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number grub99-1, March.
    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. Barrientos, Armando, 2012. "Social Transfers and Growth: What Do We Know? What Do We Need to Find Out?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 11-20.
    2. Mitra, Sophie, 2010. "Disability Cash Transfers in the Context of Poverty and Unemployment: The Case of South Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(12), pages 1692-1709, December.
    3. Bernardo Lanza Queiroz, 2007. "The determinants of male retirement in urban Brazil," Nova Economia, Economics Department, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (Brazil), vol. 17(1), pages 11-36, January-A.
    4. Bernardo Lanza Queiroz & Moema Gonçalves Bueno Figoli, 2011. "Population aging and the rising costs of public pension in Brazil," Textos para Discussão Cedeplar-UFMG td438, Cedeplar, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais.
    5. Joseph F Feulefack & Martin K Luckert & Sandeep Mohapatra & Sean B Cash & Arif Alibhai & Walter Kipp, 2013. "Impact of Community-Based HIV/AIDS Treatment on Household Incomes in Uganda," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(6), pages 1-7, June.
    6. Sarah Baird & David McKenzie & Berk Özler, 2018. "The effects of cash transfers on adult labor market outcomes," IZA Journal of Migration and Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 8(1), pages 1-20, December.
    7. Alexis Sienaert, 2008. "The Labour Supply Effects of the South African State Old Age Pension: Theory, Evidence and Implications," SALDRU Working Papers 20, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town.
    8. Cally Ardington & Anne Case & Mahnaz Islam & David Lam & Murray Leibbrandt & Alicia Menendez & Analia Olgiati, 2009. "The impact of AIDS on intergenerational support in South Africa: Evidence from the Cape Area Panel Study," SALDRU Working Papers 27, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town.
    9. Vimal Ranchhod, 2006. "The Effect Of The South African Old Age Pension On Labour Supply Of The Elderly," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 74(4), pages 725-744, December.

    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. Xi Chen, 2017. "Old age pension and intergenerational living arrangements: a regression discontinuity design," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 15(2), pages 455-476, June.
    2. Herrmann, Tabea & Leckcivilize, Attakrit & Zenker, Juliane, 2021. "The impact of cash transfers on child outcomes in rural Thailand: Evidence from a social pension reform," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 19(C).
    3. Miguel Ángel Borrella Mas & Mariano Bosch Mossi & Marcello Sartarelli, 2016. "Non-Contributory Pensions Number-Gender Effects on Poverty and Household Decisions," Working Papers. Serie AD 2016-02, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie).
    4. Chen, Xi, 2015. "Old-Age Pension and Intergenerational Living Arrangements," IZA Discussion Papers 9482, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Chen, Xi & Eggleston, Karen & Sun, Ang, 2018. "The impact of social pensions on intergenerational relationships: Comparative evidence from China," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 12(C), pages 225-235.
    6. Hamoudi, Amar & Thomas, Duncan, 2014. "Endogenous coresidence and program incidence: South Africa's Old Age Pension," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 30-37.
    7. Berg, Erlend, 2013. "Are poor people credit-constrained or myopic? Evidence from a South African panel," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 195-205.
    8. Pushkar Maitra & Ranjan Ray, 2006. "Household expenditure patterns and resource pooling: evidence of changes in post-apartheid South Africa," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 4(4), pages 325-347, December.
    9. Amar Hamoudi & Duncan Thomas, 2014. "Endogenous Co-residence and Program Incidence: South Africa's Old Age Pension," NBER Working Papers 19929, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Martine Mariotti & Juergen Meinecke, 2009. "Nonparametric Bounds on Returns to Education in South Africa: Overcoming Ability and Selection Bias," ANU Working Papers in Economics and Econometrics 2009-510, Australian National University, College of Business and Economics, School of Economics.
    11. Juarez Laura, 2010. "The Effect of an Old-Age Demogrant on the Labor Supply and Time Use of the Elderly and Non-Elderly in Mexico," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-27, June.
    12. Pedro Rodrigues de OLIVEIRA & Ana Lúcia KASSOUF, 2012. "Impact Evaluation of the Brazilian Non-Contributory Pension Program Benefício de Prestação Continuada (BPC) on Family Welfare," Working Papers PIERI 2012-12, PEP-PIERI.
    13. Javier Olivera & Jhonatan Clausen, 2014. "Las características del adulto mayor peruano y las políticas de protección social," Revista Economía, Fondo Editorial - Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, vol. 37(73), pages 75-113.
    14. Ning, Manxiu & Gong, Jinquan & Zheng, Xuhui & Zhuang, Jun, 2016. "Does New Rural Pension Scheme decrease elderly labor supply? Evidence from CHARLS," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 315-330.
    15. Agüero,Jorge M. & Fasola,Eniola, 2022. "Distributional Policies and Social Cohesion in a High-Unemployment Setting," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10103, The World Bank.
    16. Fitz, Dylan, 2013. "Development Chutes and Ladders: A Joint Impact Evaluation of Asset and Cash Transfers in Brazil," 2013 Annual Meeting, August 4-6, 2013, Washington, D.C. 150254, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    17. Johannes Fedderke, 2012. "The Cost of Rigidity: The Case of the South African Labor Market," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 54(4), pages 809-842, December.
    18. Gelo, Dambala & Kollamparambil, Umakrishnan & Jeuland, Marc, 2023. "The causal effect of income on household energy transition: Evidence from old age pension eligibility in South Africa," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    19. Frederick C.v.N. Fourie, 2011. "The South African unemployment debate: three worlds, three discourses?," SALDRU Working Papers 63, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town.

    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:ldr:cssrwp:118. 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: Alison Siljeur (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sauctza.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.