Browsing by Author "Burger, Rulof"

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    Trends in poverty and inequality since the political transition
    (Elsevier, 2006) Yu, Derek; Louw, Megan; Burger, Rulof
    Using a constructed data series and another data series based on the All Media and Products surveys (AMPS), this paper explores trends in poverty and income distribution over the post-transition period. To steer clear of an unduly optimistic conclusion, assumptions are chosen that would tend to show the least decline in poverty. Whilst there were no strong trends in poverty for the period 1995 to 2000, both data series show a considerable decline in poverty after 2000, particularly in the period 2002-2004. Poverty dominance testing shows that this decline is independent of the poverty line chosen or whether the poverty headcount, the poverty ratio or the poverty severity ratio are used as measure. We find likely explanations for this strong and robust decline in poverty in the massive expansion of the social grant system as well as possibly in improved job creation in recent years. Whilst the collective income of the poor (using our definition of poverty) was only R27 billion in 2000, the grants (in constant 2000 Rand values) have expanded by R22 billion since. Even if the grants were not well targeted at the poor (and in the past they have been), a large proportion of this spending must have reached the poor, thus leaving little doubt that poverty must have declined substantially.
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    Wage trends in post-apartheid South Africa: Constructing an earnings series from household survey data
    (South African Reserve Bank, 2006) Yu, Derek; Burger, Rulof
    Recent research on South African labour-market trends has suggested that workers have, on average, experienced a substantial decrease in their real wage earnings in the post-apartheid era. This paper will show that this claim is based on choosing datasets on either side of Statistics South Africa’s changeover from the October Household Survey (OHS) to the Labour Force Survey (LFS), which caused a discontinuous and inexplicably large drop in average earnings. By using all the household datasets after 1994, one can attempt to identify and address the sources of data inconsistencies across surveys in order to construct a more comparable earnings time series. Taking account of the inconsistencies in questionnaire design and the presence of outliers, it is possible to construct a fairly stable earnings series for formal-sector employees.
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    Wage trends in post-apartheid South Africa: Constructing an earnings series from household survey data
    (University of Cape Town, 2007) Yu, Derek; Burger, Rulof
    This paper examines South African wage earnings trends using all the available post-1994 household survey datasets. This allows us to identify and address the sources of data inconsistencies across surveys in order to construct a more comparable earnings time series. Taking account of the inconsistencies in questionnaire design and the presence of outliers, we find that it is possible to construct a fairly stable earnings series for formal sector employees. We find that claims that workers have on average experienced a substantial decrease in their real wage earnings in the post-apartheid era is based on choosing datasets on either side of Statistics South Africa’s changeover from October Household Surveys (OHS) to the more consistent Labour Force Surveys (LFS), which caused a discontinuous and inexplicably large drop in average earnings. The data actually show an increase in real wage earnings in the post-transition period for formal sector employees, and does not provide strong evidence of decreasing wages in the informal economy. The paper also investigates changes in the distribution of earnings, as well as mean earnings trends by population group, gender and skill category.