Browsing by Author "Mayet, Natasha"

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
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    Employment Outcomes and Returns to Earnings in Post-Apartheid South Africa
    (2012-12) Bhorat, Haroon; Mayet, Natasha
    This paper attempts to understand some of the key drivers of employment and earnings trends within the South African labour market in the 15 years following the demise of apartheid. A number of factors are discussed which feature in the understanding of South Africa’s labour market dynamics in general, and its high unemployment levels in particular.
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    Estimating the Causal Effect of Enforcement on Minimum Wage Compliance : The Case of South Africa
    (2011-12) Bhorat, Haroon; Kanbur, Ravi; Mayet, Natasha
    This paper attempts to estimate the causal effect of government enforcement on compliance with minimum wages in South Africa, a country where considerable non-compliance exists. The number of labour inspectors per capita is used as a proxy for enforcement, whilst non-compliance is measured using an index of violation that measures both the proportion of individuals violated, as well as the average depth of individual violation.
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    The Impact of Sectoral Minimum Wage Laws on Employment, Wages and Hours of Work in South Africa
    (2012-11) Bhorat, Haroon; Kanbur, Ravi; Mayet, Natasha
    This paper attempts to investigate the impact of sectoral wage laws in South Africa. Specifically, we examine the impact of minimum wage laws promulgated in the Retail, Domestic work, Forestry, Security, and Taxi sectors using 15 waves of biannual Labour Force Survey data for the 2000-2007 period.
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    Minimum Wage Enforcement in South Africa Measurement and Determinants
    (2010) Mayet, Natasha; Bhorat, Haroon
    The lack of compliance amongst employers with minimum wage legislation is a problem faced by many developing countries. South Africa is no exception, informal evidence suggesting that a large proportion of the employed in the country earn wages below the stipulated minima. This dissertation attempts to measure non-compliance or, in other words, 'violation' of employers in South Africa of minimum wage legislation, and to investigate the determinants of this violation. This study constitutes the first attempt to measure enforcement and compliance in South Africa. In order to measure the strength of government enforcement of minimum wages in South Africa, the number of labour inspectors is used as a proxy measure, while employer noncompliance, or violation, is measured using an approach developed by Kanbur (2007), referred to here as the 'Kanbur Index of Violation'. Derived from the Foster-Greer-Thorbecke (1984) poverty measures, this index is used to measure the share of violated workers receiving sub-minimum wages, as well as the depth of violation, namely, the average gap between the stipulated minima and the actual wage paid. This is the first attempt in the literature on minimum wage enforcement to use the methodology proposed by Kanbur (2007) for the measurement of violation. The estimates obtained for South Africa show that the sectors where violation is most prevalent include the Security, Taxi and Farming sectors. A multivariate analysis is employed, using standard OLS, probit, and quantile regression techniques to investigate the determinants of the probability of a worker being violated by their non-compliant employer, as well as of the depth and extent of the violation, that is, the shortfall of their wage from the minimum. Another innovation of this paper, in addition to the use of the Kanbur index as a measure of violation, is the introduction of a number of spatial/density variables, such as the log of workers per square kilometre, the density of labour inspectors in a District Council, and the unemployment density in the area. The construction of these variables was made possible by mapping the statutory minima, which are location specific, to the geographic units in the Labour Force Survey data for South Africa. The principal findings of this analysis are that violation is an outcome of a range of 8 variables, including individual, firm-level/contractual, sectoral, as well as spatial/density characteristics. A key marker of the probability of minimum wage violation and the depth of violation is the density of labour inspectors in the District Council where the worker is employed. Firm-specific characteristics such as firm size also play a leading role. The results from this dissertation carry important policy implications for minimum wage legislators in South Africa, especially regarding interventions around the enforcement of sectoral minima.
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    Minimum Wage Violation in South Africa
    (2011-10) Bhorat, Haroon; Kanbur, Ravi; Mayet, Natasha
    Minimum wage legislation is central in South African policy discourse, with both strong support and strong opposition. The validity of either position depends, however, on the effectiveness of minimum wage enforcement. Using detailed matching of occupational, sectoral and locational codes in the 2007 Labour Force Survey to the gazetted minimum wages, this paper presents, we believe for the first time, estimates of minimum wage violation in South Africa.
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    Student Graduation, Labour Market Destinations and Employment Earnings
    (2012-11) Bhorat, Haroon; Mayet, Natasha; Visser, Mariette
    This paper investigates the labour market destinations of graduates from seven higher education institutions in South Africa. A three-step estimation procedure is employed in which the relative importance of covariates such as age, race, and gender in each stage from educational attainment to pre-defined labour market outcomes, is estimated.