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Publications (31)
Blog
New analysis of income data in South Africa shows the gender pay gap—how much more men earn than women—has increased. According to findings from a study conducted by the SA-TIED programme, in 2021, women in South Africa earned 78 cents for every rand earned by men, compared to 89 cents in 2008. This...
Research on how income inequality affects borrowing behaviour reignited after the 2008 global recession. One prevailing theory is that rising income inequality in the US and other high-income economies eroded real household incomes and prompted more and more borrowing. This growing debt culminated...
Book Chapter
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
From the book:
Tasks, Skills, and Institutions
Book Chapter
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– South Africa’s Kuznetsian tension
From the book:
The Developer’s Dilemma
Blog
– The power of ideas & the limits of technocracy
What will it take to shake loose the distemper of our times, and initiate a virtuous spiral of renewal? In a recent UNU-WIDER webinar, Alan Hirsch and I explored why a narrow focus on growth and good governance will not be enough to get South Africa (and, by analogy, other countries similarly...
Blog
The COVID-19 pandemic delivered a devastating economic shock to livelihoods across the world. In Cape Town, it has been toughest on those who had just found a way to keep their heads above water, living on the fringes of urban society. The COVID-19 lockdown in South Africa was one of the earliest...
Tax benefits to boost contributions into pension funds or pension-related tax expenditures (PTEs) are used widely by governments worldwide to address issues related to the aging of population and the sustainability of retirement systems. Although these goals are worth pursuing, PTEs are often highly...
Book Chapter
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– The top-end, labour markets, fiscal redistribution and the persistence of very high inequality
From the book:
Inequality in the Developing World
Blog
While growing up, I was troubled by the scale of the socioeconomic gap between the haves and the have-nots in the community around me. I saw cases where some individuals and households could afford education, quality healthcare, nice houses, nutritious food and good clothing, while others lived in...
Blog
– Explaining income distributions with ‘decompositions’
The understanding of inequality requires the analysis of changes in income distributions across countries and over time as well as the identification of its drivers. To achieve this we use different statistical tools to identify the distributional patterns and summarize the results using inequality...
Income inequality is the result of complex processes with multiple interacting driving forces but understanding those drivers in emerging economies is particularly difficult because of data and analytical challenges. While most middle-income countries produce comprehensive household surveys these...
The many faces of inequality Measuring inequality isn’t as simple as it may seem. We know that since the 1970s global inequality has been falling in relative terms, but absolute inequality has been increasing over the same period. There are also substantial differences in trends across the different...
– A report from the stakeholder workshop - 15 November 2018, Pretoria, South Africa
I found myself in the third-floor conference rooms of a Pretoria hotel for a meeting with economists, researchers, and policymakers involved in the SA-TIED programme. We had gathered here to discuss research progress in SA-TIED for two of the six work streams: Public revenue mobilization and Turning...
Engagement is needed at all levels to address ongoing inequality faced in South Africa. This was the primary aim of a recent policy seminar in Pretoria, organized through the framework of the Mandela Initiative and partners, including UNU-WIDER. The idea of the gathering was to engage a group of...
Blog
Racial wage inequality and discrimination have pervaded South African society for centuries. Apartheid legislation cemented these disparities by institutionalizing white job reservation and many other unfair practices. While racial wage gaps started to decline towards the end of apartheid in 1994...
Blog
– What role has the Employment Tax Incentive played?
South Africa has some of the highest rates of joblessness in the world and youth unemployment is particularly severe. Roughly two in five young South Africans who want work cannot find it, according to labour force surveys. The South African government has introduced numerous policies to help young...
Displaying 16 of 31 results