OpenUCT :: Browsing by Author "Woolard, Ingrid"

Browsing by Author "Woolard, Ingrid"

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Open Access
Achieving Employment Equity in the Public Service: A study of changes between 1995 and 2001
(2002-01) Thompson, Keith; Woolard, Ingrid
This paper will seek to analyse the performance of the public sector in implementing affirmative action policies intended to promote employment equity. This will be done primarily by examining the pattern of changes in public sector employment over the past five years.
Open Access
An analysis of the relationship between health and the labour market in South Africa
(2015) Nwosu, Chijioke Osinachi; Woolard, Ingrid; Piraino, Patrizio
The relationship between health and labour market outcomes is of academic and policy interest due to the essential role the labour market plays in engendering economic growth. It is in this regard that this thesis is both timely and essential especially in light of scant literature on the health-labour market relationship in South Africa. South Africa presents an interesting case for a study of this nature as it had experienced high disease burden and mortality, coupled with declining labour force participation in the period prior to this study. Furthermore, the relationship between health and labour market earnings as well as impairment-related wage discrimination is not well-known in South Africa. Therefore, this thesis sought to establish the relationship between health on the one hand, and labour force participation, wage determination and wage discrimination on the other, in South Africa. Data was obtained from the first and third waves of the National Income Dynamics Study (collected in 2008 and 2012 respectively), a rich and nationally representative survey dataset of South African households. Descriptive analysis and different econometric techniques like instrumental variables, censored quantile regression and Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition were used for estimation. For the cross-sectional analysis, the study found significant impact of health on labour force participation of between 20% and 33% depending on the measure, while longer term relationships indicated statistically significant association (up to 11% for females and 16% for males). These figures indicate that the relationship between health and labour force participation was not just temporary. Males had higher labour force participation probability than females. Furthermore, grant receipt was associated with reduced labour force participation probability while education and age were associated with increased labour force participation. Also, marriage/cohabitation was negatively (positively) associated with female (male) labour force participation. In addition, labour force participation probability was generally higher in other areas relative to traditional authority locations. These results conform to a priori expectations. On the relationship (or gradient) between health and wages, the study established positive and statistically significant gradients between better physical, psychological and general health on the one hand, and wages on the other, among Africans and coloureds. This was even after controlling for education and other important wage determinants like occupational category, industry, union membership and gender. These gradients ranged from an elasticity of -0.06 to -0.07 for psychological health/depression to an elasticity of 0.31-0.45 for physical health (proxied by body mass index) in the short term. Also, persistently adverse general health and psychological conditions exhibited steep gradients. Finally, the study found evidence of non-trivial impairment-related differences in returns to wage-determining characteristics (loosely termed wage discrimination) in both 2008 and 2012 for the average wage, while the proportion of estimated wage gaps contributed by impairment-related differences in returns increased over time. Similar findings were obtained across the wage distribution, as the proportion of total estimated wage gaps accounted for by returns to characteristics increased across waves in virtually all deciles of the wage distribution. Even in terms of magnitude, the returns/discrimination component of total estimated impairment-related wage gaps increased for most quantiles of the wage distribution. Finally, education and occupational class contributed the most to the explained wage gap across waves.
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Asset-based versus money metric poverty indices in South Africa: An assessment using the chronic poverty research centre RSA 2002 survey
(CSSR and SALDRU, 2015-05-28) Crosoer, David; Leibbrandt, Murray; Woolard, Ingrid
Open Access
Asset-based versus money metric poverty indices in South Africa: an assessment using the Chronic Poverty Research Centre RSA 2002 Survey
(2005) Crosoer, David; Leibbrandt, Murray; Woolard, Ingrid
Using data from a detailed chronic poverty survey of three South African communities, this paper compares the correlations between traditional (i.e. income and expenditure) and wealth-based measures of poverty in ranking households as poor as well as their ability to explain additional qualitative measures of persistent poverty such as household hunger. We find significant locational differences in terms of the composition of household wealth measures and this complicates the derivation of appropriate wealth indices. Traditional money-metric measures of poverty that abstract from location appear to explain short-term measures of deprivation like household hunger relatively well, and consistently capture the bottom and top deciles of the distribution. On their own wealth-based measures appear less suited to explaining household hunger, suggesting more liquid based measures for short-term indicators are more appropriate.
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Child Grants: Analysis of the NIDS Wave 1 and 2 Datasets
(2015-05-28) Woolard, Ingrid; Buthelezi, Thabani; Bertsher, Jonathan
Open Access
Children and inequality: an introduction and overview
(Children's Institute, 2012) Hall, Katharine; Woolard, Ingrid
Open Access
Children and inequality: closing the gap
(Children's Institute, 2012) Hall, Katharine; Woolard, Ingrid; Lake, Lori; Smith, Charmaine
Policy brief accompanying the South African Child Gauge 2012, published by the Children's Institute, UCT.
Open Access
A Comparison of Wage Levels and Wage Inequality in the Public and Private Sectors, 1995 - 2000
(2002-03) Woolard, Ingrid
This paper sets out to investigate relative wages and wage dispersion for formal sector workers in the private and public sectors. The paper explicitly measures the size of the public sector wage premium and offers some reasons for its existence. It also attempts to document the changing pattern of wage differentials between public and private sector employees between 1995 and 2000.
Open Access
Corporate taxation and investment in South Africa
(2021) Maboshe, Mashekwa; Woolard, Ingrid
This thesis investigates some aspects of corporate taxation and firm-level investment in South Africa. The thesis uses specially constructed and unique datasets to draw insights on the link between corporate tax changes and firm-level investment and as well as the efficiency of capital allocation in South Africa. The thesis comprises a short introductory chapter, three empirical chapters, and a summary chapter. The first empirical chapter (chapter 2) evaluates the responsiveness of firm-level investment to corporate tax changes over a period of notable corporate tax reforms in South Africa. The study estimates a reduced form neoclassical investment model using a particularly constructed dataset of firms listed on the Johannesburg stock exchange over the period 1999-2012. Generalised methods of moments (GMM) techniques are used to control for various econometric biases. The findings suggest that although the corporate tax reforms reduced the marginal cost of investment, these reductions did not result in a statistically significant increase in firm-level investment. The null effects found in this study are robust to various estimation specifications. Although at variance with the established literature from developed countries, the findings are similar to emerging evidence in other developing country contexts and suggest that other factors may be more important determinants of investment than corporate tax policy. Chapter 3 explores the possibility that the unresponsiveness of firm-level investment to corporate tax policy may be a result of the presence of financial constraints. According to the financial constraints hypothesis, neoclassical fundamentals may fail to explain investment in the presence of financial constraints. The paper investigates the role of financial constraints in investment using dynamic GMM and endogenous switching regressions methods. The paper finds that financial constraints are an important factor in investment determination. Firms that are more financially constrained rely more on the availability of internal resources to fund investment relative to the less financially constrained firms. The findings suggest that investment policy should consider strategies that reduce informational asymmetries and other capital market inefficiencies. Such strategies would help lower the barriers and costs of external finance, thus improving firm-level investment. Chapter 4 considers the implications of differential taxation of assets and industries in South Africa. The paper's motivation is that although there are variations in the tax treatment of investments in assets and across industries, little empirical evidence exists on the nature of any investment distortions due to differential tax policies. Using a rare and unexplored industry level data source from Statistics South Africa, the study constructs a panel of asset shares by industry over the period 2007-2014 and estimates inter-asset tax elasticities to estimate the potential investment distortion or misallocation effects of differential taxation policies. The findings suggest the presence of non-negligible inter-asset distortions due to non-uniform taxation of investments. Investments in a given asset are found to respond to the tax incentives provided for other asset classes. Our findings suggest that current corporate tax policies that offer differentiated and asset or industry-specific investment incentives may be causing distortions and inefficiencies in the allocation of assets among industries.
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Describing and decomposing post-apartheid income inequality in South Africa
(Development Southern Africa, 2015-05-28) Leibbrandt, Murray; Finn, Arden; Woolard, Ingrid
Open Access
Distributional impact of health care finance in South Africa
(2012) Ataguba, John E; Woolard, Ingrid; McIntyre, Di
In South Africa, health care is financed through different mechanisms - allocations from general taxes, private health insurance contributions and direct out-of-pocket payments. These mechanisms impact differently on different households. While there are empirical evidence in developed countries, the distributional impact of such payments and methodological challenges in such assessments in the context of Africa are scarce. Borrowing from the tax literature, the thesis aims to assess the relative impact of health care financing on households' welfare and standards of living. Methodological issues around the assessment of income redistributive impact of health care payments in the context of South Africa are also explored.
Open Access
An examination of labour discrimination in South Africa 2005-2008 : discussion and sensitivity analysis
(2011) Barnett, Luke; Woolard, Ingrid
Unemployment levels in South Africa are some of the highest in the world. Since the birth of democracy in 1994, the South African government has not only made employment a major focal point, but also the reduction in unemployment inequality. Using probit analysis, as well as non-linear decomposition techniques, this paper investigate the effects these policies have had on the labour market, in light of the recent economic recession experienced locally and abroad. Results indicate that racial labour discrimination still exists within the workplace, however whether this is due to differing endowments or pure discrimination is still a contentious issue.
Open Access
Explaining changes in post-apartheid income and earnings inequality
(2021) Hundenborn, Ines Janina; Leibbrandt, Murray; Woolard, Ingrid
This doctoral thesis analyses the changes in income inequality in post-apartheid South Africa. The thesis adds to the existing literature by explaining the underlying causes of the changes in observed income inequality. As such, this thesis applies different decomposition methods to the Gini coefficient. In the analysis of household income sources, traditional static decompositions are supplemented by applying micro-simulations that allow for a dynamic decomposition of changes in income sources reported in household surveys. The results corroborate previous findings of the significant contribution of labour market incomes and governmen grants. However, the application of advanced dynamic methods highlights the effects of changes in other factors, such as investment income and the role of employed household members, which have previously received less attention. Further study of household survey data and a unique set of tax administration data enabled a decomposition of the Gini coefficient of taxable income to investigate the effect of high earners on income inequality and the accuracy of capturing them in household surveys. This analysis highlights a significant weighting issues of high earners in the latest wave of the household survey data. Therefore, when combining the two types of data sets, a significant decrease in overall inequality of taxable income can be found between 2011 and 2014. The results ascertain the vast differences between the top and the bottom of the income distribution and concrete policies addressing both sides of the issue need to be implemented in order to overcome persisting income inequality. Finally, the strong effects of labour market incomes on overall income inequality warrant further investigation. Therefore, changes in earnings inequality are decomposed to assess the effect of changes in the labour market. The application of micro-simulations thereby allows to decompose the changes in earnings inequality into ‘price effect' and ‘endowment effect' but also to assess the effect of changes in labour market participation, employment, occupational structure and unobserved characteristics. The results show that key drivers of an increase in earnings inequality between 1993 and 2012 were changes in the endowments of working age individuals. This effect was partially counteracted by the price effect. The findings show persisting discrepancies between male and female employment in the labour market and the ongoing marginalization particularly of African women which highlights the need for a revision of existing affirmative action laws and their implementation. The National Development Plan offers several strategies for more inclusive growth for South Africa, however, government is already falling behind with its implementation. Therefore, policy makers need to re-examine the efficiency of current social spending and labour laws in order to set the right growth path for the South African economy. The methods utilized throughout this thesis harmonise different sources of information and enable an integrated analysis of the dynamics of the South African income distribution. The static and dynamic decompositions make use of the 1993 household survey of the Project for Statistics on Living Standards and Development (PSLSD) and the 2008 and 2014 National Income Dynamics Study (NIDS). The assessment of high earners is performed by comparing tax administration data provided by the South African Revenue Service (SARS) for the 2010 and 2014 tax years with household survey data from NIDS in 2011 and 2014. Finally, the decomposition of earnings inequality is carried out using data sets from the Post-Apartheid Labour Market Series (PALMS) between 1993 and 2012.
Open Access
Exploring the degree of stability in young adults' living arrangements in the Cape Area Panel Study (CAPS) between 2002 and 2005 and how this relates to their well-being
(2009) Jooste, Meagan; Leibbrandt, Murray; Woolard, Ingrid
The legacy of racial discrimination in South Africa continues in terms of differences in levels of income and poverty across races. While much work has been done on understanding these dynamics at the level of the household, little attention has been paid to the impact on individual members, specifically young adults. This dissertation illustrates the extent to which young adults of the three dominant race groups (African, Coloured and White) alter their living arrangements and how these changes relate to changing household income dynamics. In this way, a clearer understanding is developed of how household fragmentation and reconstruction influences the well-being of young adults. The Cape Area Panel Study (CAPS) of young adults between the ages of 14 to 22 years in 2002, and 17 to 25 years in 2005, is employed to investigate these living arrangement and income dynamic changes in 2002 and 2005. In general, it is found that most young adults reside with both parents or with their mother. African young adults have a more varied living arrangement pattern than Coloureds and Whites. This dissertation defines a measure of young adult living arrangement stability. This measure distinguishes between young adults who have stayed in the same living arrangement, 'stayer' young adults, and those who have altered this, 'mover' young adults, between 2002 and 2005. This distinction is used to explain and contrast the well-being of these two groups of young adults using their household income dynamics. Overall, while the literature suggests that there is a large degree of fluidity in the living arrangements of young adults, this dissertation shows that it occurs on a limited scale in the CAPS. A poverty transition analysis shows that stayer young adults progress at a faster pace than movers. In contrast, mover young adults experience greater upward mobility in their well-being over time. A multivariate regression analysis shows that whether a change in a young adult's living circumstance impacts on their well-being, depends on their initial (2002) living circumstances. As such, in formulating strategies to enhance the well-being of young adults, attention should be given to the living arrangement dynamics they confront.
Open Access
Gender and life-cycle differentials in the correlates of adult ill health in South Africa
(2011) Maboshe, Mashekwa; Woolard, Ingrid
This study investigates the gender and life-cycle differentials in the socio-economic co-variates of adult self-evaluated ill health in South Africa using data from the 2008 National Income Dynamics Study wave 1 survey.
Metadata only
Getting ahead or falling behind: Findings from the second wave of the National Income Dynamics Study
(Development Southern Africa, 2015-05-28) Woolard, Ingrid; Leibbrandt, Murray; Daniels, Reza Che
Open Access
Household Incomes, Poverty and Inequality in a Multivariate Framework
(1999-12) Leibbrandt, Murray; Woolard, Ingrid
The existing work on household poverty and inequality in South Africa has shown that poverty and inequality differ markedly by race, location, education, gender of the head, household demographics and household labour market participation. However, it is important to try and go further than this listing of key correlates and to give any indication of the relative importance of these dimensions.
Open Access
Impact of South Africa's older persons' grant on the labour market outcome of prime age individuals
(2014) Idahosa, Love Odion; Woolard, Ingrid
The study evaluates the impact of the presence of an individual who is age eligible for "state older persons' grant" on the labour force participation of prime age individuals who live with these individuals. Exploiting the panel structure of the National Income Dynamic Study (NIDS) data set, the study uses all three waves (2008, 2010 and 2012) of the data set to estimate if whether or not a causal relationship exists between the probability of employment of these prime age individuals and the existence of an individual eligible for pension in the household. Apart from employing cross sectional methods, the study makes use of pooled OLS and an Individual Fixed Effect model to estimate different equation specifications which control for various factors. To facilitate better comparison with previous literature, certain regression specifications in both the cross section and Panel evaluation methods restricts the sample to households with at least three generations of individuals residing within the household unit. Consistent with previous research, cross sectional results show that holding other factors that affect the probability of employment constant, there exists a negative association between the existence of age eligible individuals in households with prime aged adults, and the probability that these adults are employed. Contrary to previous research however, the panel results uphold instead of contradicting the results from cross sectional analysis and hence suggest that there indeed exists a negative causal relationship between the existence of at least one pension eligible individual and the probability that prime age adults living with them are employed. The results also find that consistent with previous research, the males in the household are the major drivers of this effect.
Open Access
Income stratification and polarization in post-apartheid South Africa
(2019) Machema, Ratjomose Petrose; Leibbrandt, Murray; Woolard, Ingrid
The thesis explores the patterns and evolution of income polarization, income stratification, and social polarization in post-Apartheid South Africa. It uses data from a survey conducted at the end of Apartheid, and data from two post-Apartheid surveys to understand the socio-economic transformation the country has undergone since the end of Apartheid. At the dawn of democracy in 1994, South Africa implemented many reforms to redress the effects of Apartheid. Two decades after the fall of Apartheid, the country is still battling against the social and economic hierarchies bestowed during the period of Apartheid. Black/African people, for example, still constitute at least 90% of the poor, unemployment hovers around 25% (with Blacks/African having 32% unemployment rate), and inequality is unchanged. There are also concerns of increasing intolerance to diversity as well as plummeting levels of social cohesion in the country. Therefore, if these disparities are not properly understood and addressed, disintegration could emerge as the future threat. Thus, our goal in this thesis is to examine the impact of political transition, which was followed by the enactment of a number of reforms, on the appearance (or disappearance) of economic distances and differences across population groups. This investigation is carried out through the perspective of income polarization and income stratification literature. Chapter 2 presents the analysis of the concepts of bi-polarization and polarization on the distribution of income in South Africa between 1993 and 2014-2015. Applying the non-parametric relative distribution approach and the summary measures of bipolarization and polarization, the chapter finds that, from 1993 to 2008, as inequality rises, both notions of polarization also increase, but at a much higher rate such that the distribution becomes perfectly bi-polar. During the period between 2008 to 2014, the level of bi-polarization falls below its 1993 level. Given the axiomatised link between bi-polarization and the size of the middle class, the results point to an increase in the size of the middle class in South African since the fall of apartheid. Lastly, the chapter finds that the distribution of government transfers and that of remittances have a depolarizing effect, while the distribution of labour income and of capital income have a tendency to erect poles on the national income distribution. Chapter 3 attempts, on the basis of Analysis of Gini, to provide the extent to which the income distributions of racial groups are hierarchically ordered along the national income distribution. Hierarchically ordering of income distributions assumes convergence, or lack of it, of incomes and of education across the racial groups. Therefore, first the chapter presents the rate of convergence of education and of income across the racial groups to serve as a backdrop in the analysis of overlapping of distribution of income across the racial group. The chapter finds that the income distribution of Whites overlaps less with that of the overall population and that of other racial groups, and changes in the distribution of labour income, and of capital income are likely to increase the degree of income stratification (or reduce degree overlapping of income distributions). Chapter 4 tries to demonstrate how social gaps across racial groups have evolved in post-Apartheid South Africa. To operationalize a measure of social gaps, we use the degree to which one feels identified and thus defends the interest of his racial group. This is referred to as a degree of radicalism. Through a series of regressions, the chapter shows how the degree of radicalism decreases with household wealth, level of education, employment, and satisfaction with life. Using the distribution of radicalism to quantify alienation, the chapter shows a fall in the scores of social polarization, which is largely driven by a fall in between-group polarization. Given that within group polarization rises concurrently with a fall in between-group polarization, this implies a trade-off between internal heterogeneity and external homogeneity. In short, the thesis advances our understanding of the normatively undesirable issue of distances and differences across groups and highlights the often neglected, yet indispensable, dimensions of an income distribution.
Open Access
Increasing progressivity in South Africa's personal income tax system
(2017) Rasmussen, Emma Helen; Woolard, Ingrid; Leibbrandt, Murray
This dissertation uses NIDS Wave 4 to simulate past, present and future personal income tax progressivity in South Africa. It is divided into two main sections. The first section investigates changes in progressivity between tax years 1996 and 2017. Using the Kakwani index I find increased progressivity over this time period. However, pre-and post-Gini coefficients show decreased progressivity. The second section uses a static, arithmetic microsimulation model to simulate two policies aimed at increasing progressivity: a negative income tax and increased tax rates for high income earners. The negative income tax is shown to significantly reduce inequality, while increased tax rates for high income earners have a limited impact. They also have limited potential for increasing tax revenue, making it unfeasible to finance the negative income tax through such tax increases. A South African negative income tax will either have to be smaller than the levels simulated or financed through other means.

Browsing by Author "Woolard, Ingrid"

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