Browsing by Author "Köhler, Timothy"

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    COVID-19 and labour market inequality in South Africa
    (2024) Köhler, Timothy; Bhorat, Haroon
    In 2020, the world was gripped by the COVID-19 pandemic. Beyond its health implications, the pandemic led to unprecedented economic contractions and one of the largest increases in poverty and income inequality to date. Effects on labour markets are of particular interest given their dominant role in determining wellbeing. Existing evidence reveals substantial, regressive effects globally. This holds particular relevance in South Africa, measurably the most unequal country in the world, primarily due to the nature of its labour market, which also experienced one of the most stringent lockdowns globally. This thesis provides a micro-econometric examination of the aggregate and heterogenous labour market effects of the pandemic in South Africa. To do so, it employs descriptive and quasi-experimental econometric techniques applied on nationally representative, individual-level household survey data. After providing a synthesised review of the extensive international literature, the first substantive contribution concerns aggregate and between-group adjustments to employment and working hours. I estimate substantial aggregate job loss accompanied by a surge in inactivity, and document significant regressivity in both the short- and longer-terms, thus reinforcing pre-existing inequalities on both the extensive and intensive margins. I reveal the principal roles of two key features of the pandemic labour market - remote work ability and ‘essential' worker status - in explaining these outcomes. Modelling the evolution of outcome determinants suggests some persistent changes to the structure of the labour market. In my second substantive contribution, I analyse the evolving level and nature of wages and wage inequality. I first characterise the non-negligible, non-randomly distributed missing wage data. After obtaining reliable estimates through parametric techniques, I estimate extremely high and stable pre-pandemic inequality levels. At the pandemic's onset, I show that wages increased primarily due to an inequality-enhancing composition effect, driven by a regressive job loss distribution related to the two aforementioned features. Inequality-reducing within-worker wage gains are also evident, but the dominance of the composition effect resulted in a large but transient increase in inequality on net. Persistent changes to wage determinants drove wages and wage inequality back toward their pre-pandemic levels as the labour market recovered. The third contribution concerns the role of a key policy globally - sector-specific restrictions. I exploit temporal and between-industry variation induced by these to estimate their causal effect on employment. The analysis isolates how much job loss was attributable to this policy relative to other pandemic-related factors. I find significant negative effects, and estimate that they accounted for two-thirds of the total employment decline. This reflects both the severity of South Africa's restrictions but additionally that job loss would have still occurred in their absence, consistent with the literature. I further take advantage of overlap in policy variation and data collection periods to examine heterogeneity by policy stringency and sectoral formality, highlighting disproportionate effects on informal workers. The thesis concludes with a summary of key findings, limitations, and implications for future research.
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    Longitudinal changes in COVID-19 vaccination intent among South African adults: evidence from the NIDS-CRAM panel survey, February to May 2021
    (2022-03-02) Burger, Ronelle; Köhler, Timothy; Golos, Aleksandra M; Buttenheim, Alison M; English, René; Tameris, Michele; Maughan-Brown, Brendan
    Background COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy has threatened the ability of many countries worldwide to contain the pandemic. Given the severe impact of the pandemic in South Africa and disruptions to the roll-out of the vaccine in early 2021, slower-than-expected uptake is a pressing public health challenge in the country. We examined longitudinal changes in COVID-19 vaccination intent among South African adults, as well as determinants of intent to receive a vaccine. Methods We used longitudinal data from Wave 4 (February/March 2021) and Wave 5 (April/May 2021) of the National Income Dynamics Study: Coronavirus Rapid Mobile Survey (NIDS-CRAM), a national and broadly representative panel survey of adults in South Africa. We conducted cross-sectional analyses on aggregate and between-group variation in vaccination intent, examined individual-level changes between waves, and modeled demographic predictors of intent. Results We analysed data for 5629 (Wave 4; 48% male, mean age 41.5 years) and 5862 (Wave 5; 48% male, mean age 41.6 years) respondents. Willingness to get a COVID-19 vaccine significantly increased from 70.8% (95% CI: 68.5–73.1) in Wave 4 to 76.1% (95% CI: 74.2–77.8) in Wave 5. Individual-level analyses indicated that only 6.6% of respondents remained strongly hesitant between survey waves. Although respondents aged 18–24 years were 8.5 percentage points more likely to report hesitancy, hesitant respondents in this group were 5.6 percentage points more likely to change their minds by Wave 5. Concerns about rushed testing and safety of the vaccines were frequent and strongly-held reasons for hesitancy. Conclusions Willingness to receive a COVID-19 vaccine has increased among adults in South Africa, and those who were entrenched in their reluctance make up a small proportion of the country’s population. Younger adults, those in formal housing, and those who trusted COVID-19 information on social media were more likely to be hesitant. Given that stated vaccination intent may not translate into behaviour, our finding that three-quarters of the population were willing to accept the vaccine may reflect an upper bound. Vaccination promotion campaigns should continue to frame vaccine acceptance as the norm and tailor strategies to different demographic groups.