IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/gluwps/110658.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Social policies and redistribution in South Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Leubolt, Bernhard

Abstract

This paper aims at analyzing the effects of social policies on income inequalities in South Africa since the 1990s. Based on a framework of historical institutionalism, the heritage of a distributional regime based on institutional racism is highlighted. This had lasting effects on social policies which also had both liberal and conservative characteristics. Democratisation at the beginning of the 1990s led to the abolishing of institutional racism and conservative features, while the new framework tended to be of a more liberal nature than before. The Post- Apartheid transformation is marked by many contradictions: Concerning social policies, adverse effects of the ambiti ous affirmative action programme "Black Economic Empowerment" are diagnosed, as it creates incentives for highly-skilled public sector workers to work in the better-paid private sector. Apart from the resulting skills shortages, a tendency of cash transfers to replace public social services and infrastructure provision is diagnosed. In addition to this liberal characteristic of social policies, employment policies were not very successful, despite workfare tendencies in the approach towards welfare. As a result, overall income inequalities stagnated at very high levels after Apartheid, even with the rise of a black bourgeoisie and middle class.

Suggested Citation

  • Leubolt, Bernhard, 2014. "Social policies and redistribution in South Africa," GLU Working Papers 25, Global Labour University (GLU).
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:gluwps:110658
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/110658/1/786303956.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Henry Bernstein, 2003. "Land Reform in Southern Africa in World-Historical Perspective," Review of African Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(96), pages 203-226, June.
    2. Bill Freund, 2007. "South Africa: The End of Apartheid & the Emergence of the 'BEE Elite'," Review of African Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(114), pages 661-678, December.
    3. 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.
    4. Hermann Giliomee, 2009. "A Note On Bantu Education, 1953 To 1970," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 77(1), pages 190-198, March.
    5. Hall, Peter A. & Taylor, Rosemary C. R., 1996. "Political science and the three new institutionalisms," MPIfG Discussion Paper 96/6, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    6. Posel, Dorrit & Fairburn, James A. & Lund, Frances, 2006. "Labour migration and households: A reconsideration of the effects of the social pension on labour supply in South Africa," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 23(5), pages 836-853, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. repec:ilo:ilowps:485483 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Leubolt, Bernhard., 2014. "Social policies and redistribution in South Africa," ILO Working Papers 994854833402676, International Labour Organization.
    3. Kaushal, Neeraj, 2014. "How Public Pension affects Elderly Labor Supply and Well-being: Evidence from India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 214-225.
    4. Inés Berniell & Dolores de la Mata & Matilde Pinto Machado, 2020. "The Impact of a Permanent Income Shock on the Situation of Women in the Household: The Case of a Pension Reform in Argentina," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 68(4), pages 1295-1343.
    5. 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.
    6. Leibbrandt, Murray & Lilenstein, Kezia & Shenker, Callie & Woolard, Ingrid, 2013. "The influence of social transfers on labour supply: A South African and international review," SALDRU Working Papers 112, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town.
    7. 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).
    8. Kacker, Kanishka, 2019. "Social transfers and labor supply: Long run rvidence from South Africa," MPRA Paper 99044, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Tiberti, Luca & Maisonnave, Helene & Chitiga, Margaret & Mabugu, Ramos, 2018. "Reforming grants to tackle child poverty: An integrated macro-micro approach," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 272-281.
    10. Xi Chen, 2016. "Old-Age Pension And Extended Families: How Is Adult Children'S Internal Migration Affected?," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 34(4), pages 646-659, October.
    11. Vidhya Unnikrishnan & Kunal Sen, 2020. "Old-age pensions and female labour supply in India," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2020-90, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    12. Marito Garcia & Charity M. T. Moore, 2012. "The Cash Dividend : The Rise of Cash Transfer Programs in Sub-Saharan Africa," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 2246.
    13. Victoria Hosegood & Anne Case & Cally Ardington, 2009. "Labor Supply Responses to Large Social Transfers: Longitudinal Evidence from South Africa," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 22-48, January.
    14. 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.
    15. 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).
    16. Sinyolo, Sikhulumile & Mudhara, Maxwell & Wale, Edilegnaw, 2016. "To what extent does dependence on social grants affect smallholder farmers’ incentives to farm? Evidence from KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa," African Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, African Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 11(2), pages 1-12.
    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. Schüler, Dana, 2007. "Incentive Effects of Transfers within the Extended Family: The Case of Indonesia," Proceedings of the German Development Economics Conference, Göttingen 2007 29, Verein für Socialpolitik, Research Committee Development Economics.
    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.
    20. Alessandro Tondini & Cally Ardington & Ingrid Woolard, 2017. "Public pensions and elderly informal employment: Evidence from a change in retirement age in South Africa," SALDRU Working Papers 206, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town.

    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:zbw:gluwps:110658. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://global-labour-university.org/ .

    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.