Browsing by Subject "Unemployment"

Now showing 1 - 20 of 33
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    A qualitative study on South African policies governing youth access to alcohol
    (2025) Matee, Larona; Van Niekerk, Lauren-Jayne
    Alcohol abuse among youth continues to be a major concern worldwide in the 21st century. It has been suggested in various studies that the age of onset is decreasing rapidly and that admissions to treatment centres are increasing as young people fall prey to substance abuse. This raises serious concerns as alcohol abuse is linked to adverse health outcomes such as physical and mental health problems, social and legal consequences, as well as economic burdens. Zwelihle, a township in Hermanus, is one such community that faces various social issues, including high rates of alcohol abuse amongst the youth. This study used a qualitative research design based on the interpretivist position. Data were collected from twenty participants using a semi-structured interview guide. Fifteen young participants (aged 18 to 35) took part in focus groups, and five professionals with experience working with Zwelihle's youth were interviewed one-on-one. Data were analyzed following Tesch's qualitative data analysis steps. The study results revealed that factors such as a lack of parental involvement, unemployment, socialisation and culture as well as the availability of limited recreational activities were identified to be prominent factors which led Zwelihle's youth to alcohol and the abuse thereof. Other factors, such as alcohol outlet concentration and density in Zwelihle were argued to be one of the factors that facilitates easy access to alcohol in Zwelihle. This is also caused by the plight which comes with heightened levels of unemployment in South Africa, which drives people to alcohol dependency to forget and escape their harsh realities, or people open shebeens as a response to the harsh economic realities. At the backdrop of these concerns were the various alcohol trading policies, which were said to be ineffective in regulating the alcohol trade, and which have resulted in almost every street in Zwelihle having someone trading in alcohol and selling it to young people. One of the reasons participants cited for the failing alcohol policies was due to unreliable law enforcement agencies who were perceived to be corrupt
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    An analysis of formal sector employment in South Africa: Its implications for poverty and future economic strategies
    (Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, 2015-05-28) Abedian, Iraj; Schneier, Steffen
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    An exploration of the work experiences of taxi drivers in Cape Town: A study of Delft and Khayelitsha
    (2025) Kom, Milisa; Abdullah, Somaya
    Studies have outlined both the good and the bad sides of the taxi industry, pointing out that while it makes a positive economic contribution to the country through employment generation, the industry is beset by challenges. Among these are reckless driving, the use of unroadworthy vehicles, and persistent violence and turf wars that lead to widespread animosity and loss of life. Although there are many minibus taxi drivers in South Africa, little is known about the experiences of these employees, as most of the information provided by existing studies is based on government records rather than on personal interviews with taxi drivers. The aim of this study is to explore the work experiences of minibus taxi drivers in the Cape Town area, with a focus on Delft and Khayelitsha. The study sought to gain insight on the work experiences of minibus taxi drivers, looking at their health, social and family life, challenges, and the changes they wish to see in the industry. Methodologically, this aim was achieved through a qualitative study that adopted a phenomenological approach, in which 15 minibus taxi drivers in Cape Town, specifically Khayelitsha and Delft, were interviewed. The sample was purposively selected based on certain criteria and was conducted at Site C taxi rank in Khayelitsha, as well as the section of Delft taxi rank for the Palam and Mitchells Plain routes. Data collected from the participants was analysed using two theoretical frameworks: Social Exclusion Theory and Crenshaw's Intersectionality Theory. The results of this study have shown that the taxi driving job involves negative effects on the health and wellbeing of minibus taxi drivers, resulting in their use of poor coping strategies such as unhealthy eating and substance abuse. In addition, the taxi driving job was found to result in a deterioration of social and family life as a result of long working hours. The job has benefits such as providing relatively easy, low skilled employment and access to regular cash. Lastly, the findings show that minibus taxi drivers are faced with challenges such as exploitative working conditions, poor pay, and exposure to violence, prompting many to seek better working environments and growth. The findings of this study could inform the development of better employment policies for workers in the taxi industry and serve a guide to formalising processes in the taxi industry.
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    Duration of unemployment in youth transitions from schooling to work in Cape Town
    (2017-06-06) Mlatsheni, Cecil; Leibbrandt, Murray
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    Education and youth unemployment in South Africa
    (Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, 2015-05-28) Lam, David; Leibbrandt, Murray; Mlatsheni, Cecil
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    Factors affecting how the youth in the townships use internet to seek employment: case of a township in Cape Town
    (2019) Kunene, Khaya; Chigona, Wallace
    Problem Statement: South Africa is currently facing a challenge of youth unemployment. The hardest hit are those from low income communities, as they in addition have limited access to information. The Internet has proven to be one of the ways in which recruitment is done and failure to access reduces the opportunities. The purpose of the research: The main objective of this study was to understand how the youth living in the townships use the Internet to seek for employment. The purpose of this study is to assess how the Internet use affect the youth when searching for employment. Design/methodology/ approach: An interpretivist approach was employed to understand how the youth seek employment. This study used a qualitative approach to collect the data. Interviews were done using semi-structured questions. Alampay (2006) Capability Approach (CA) was used as a guide to conceptualise how the youth from low-income communities use the Internet to find employment. Borrowing from the four main constructs (conversion factors, freedom, capabilities and functionings) employed by Alampay (2006) in his model, this study operationalised the Alampay (2006) CA model by adding the ICT commodities as the fifth construct. The CA was chosen as an appropriate framework for this study because the framework focuses on what humans are able to do and achieve when presented with the available ICT resources. Findings: The findings demonstrate that the lack of resources, income, information and digital skills affected the individual capabilities to effectively use the Internet when seeking employment. The success rate in finding a job using the Internet was low among job seekers. Commodities, individual differences, social and environmental factors affected how the youth (18-34 years) from low-income communities use the Internet to find employment. In addition, crime, poor network coverage, expensive data bundles and limited access to ICT resources were among the key factors that contributed to limited use of the Internet among job seekers. Research Contribution: This study seeks to close the gap in limited knowledge available in developing countries with regards to the use of the Internet among job seekers. Therefore, based on the study findings, this thesis has contributed towards adding value to the body of knowledge within the field of Information Systems. In addition, the findings can contribute towards assisting policy makers in solving challenges faced by the unemployment youth in developing countries when using technology to find employment.
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    How do the non-searching unemployed feel about their situation? On the definition of unemployment.
    (Econ3x3.org, 2015-05-28) Lloyd, Neil; Leibbrandt, Murray
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    Impact of mindset priming on entrepreneurial intentions after unemployment
    (2025) Koster, Wilhelm; Samuelsson, Mikael
    The psychological impact of unemployment on risk aversion suggests that investment in education to increase entrepreneurial intentions amongst unemployed workers is unlikely to succeed without addressing this aversion first. Recent studies in construal level suggest that abstract thinking can reduce risk aversion. Furthermore, mindset theory of action phases research shows that people in an implemental mindset viewed risk factors more positively than people in a deliberative mindset. Based on this premise, this research study tests the impact of mindset of action phases and construal level theory on the retraining choice and entrepreneurial intentions of unemployed workers. Recently unemployed workers were identified from the database of a large retail bank in Southern Africa. We experimentally manipulated the mindset of 144 respondents using a well- known priming technique, and then gave a choice of entrepreneurial or general training. Participants also completed measures of entrepreneurial intention, attitude toward entrepreneurship, and construal level disposition. After confirming construct reliability and discriminant validity, statistical hypothesis tests were utilised to analyse the data. The study results show that implemental (concrete) mindset priming increases the probability of choosing entrepreneurial retraining when attitude toward entrepreneurship is high, and conversely that deliberative (abstract) mindset priming increases the probability of choosing entrepreneurial retraining when attitude toward entrepreneurship is low. In addition to adding to entrepreneurial intention, construal level theory, and mindset theory of action phases literature, this research can help policy makers and intuitions maximise investments in entrepreneurship by improving the take-up of entrepreneurial training by recently unemployed individuals.
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    Labor supply responses to large social transfers: Longitudinal evidence from South Africa
    (Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, 2015-05-28) Ardington, Cally; Case, Anne; Hosegood, Victoria
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    Labour force withdrawal of the elderly in South Africa
    (CSSR and SALDRU, 2015-05-28) Lam, David; Leibbrandt, Murray; Ranchhod, Vimal
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    Multi-Dimensional Forms of Poverty Experienced by Unemployed HIV-positive Mothers Living in Khayelitsha
    (2009) Kane, Dianna
    For the millions of unemployed South Africans, poverty is a daily experience. However, traditional economic measures of poverty are failing to provide policy makers with a full picture of the lived experience of poverty. Through two years of participant observation at Philani Nutrition Center, conversations and home visits with local outreach workers, and in-depth interviews with five HIVpositive unemployed mothers in Khayelitsha, this paper explores the multiple dimensions of poverty experienced by these mothers and their children. Using class and gender-based theories of structural oppression, this paper argues that these mothers are marginalised from the labour market and are members of a distinct unemployed underclass. Three main findings emerged from this study. One, the state of chronic unemployment has profound effects on both the material and emotional wellbeing of these women and their families. As a result of the years of race- and class-based discrimination, their opportunities to improve their situations are minimal. Two, the presence of HIV illness serves to reinforce the continued reproduction of this disadvantage through its debilitating physical and social effects. The mother's own HIV illness, as well as the intensive care required by HIV-positive children, limits a mother's ability to work and ensure the child's wellbeing. Three, the structure of patriarchy further ties mothers to their domestic and childcare responsibilities, often without the support of their partners. Unemployment and insufficient social assistance increases their pressure to earn an income in addition to fulfilling daily household responsibilities. It is important to understand how poverty manifests itself in the lives of these women and their children in order to design poverty reduction strategies that address the many dimensions of their experience. The structural causes for their poverty need to be recognised in order to motivate meaningful changes in our society, with the goal of creating an enabling environment for these mothers. This will then provide the mothers with the space in which to transcend their current position in the underclass and ensure the many aspects of wellbeing for themselves and their children.
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    New evidence on subjective well-being and the definition of unemployment in South Africa
    (Development Southern Africa, 2015-05-28) Lloyd, Neil; Leibbrandt, Murray
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    Public Works as a Response to Labour Market Failure in South Africa
    (CSSR and SALDRU, 2015-05-28) McCord, Anna
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    Should youth unemployment be targeted as part of a comprehensive welfare policy in South Africa2?
    (2002) Nattrass, Nicoli
    A scheme to address youth unemployment is not an appropriate component of a social welfare net in South Africa because a higher proportion of older unemployed people are poor. Age is a very blunt proxy for inexperience (and associated labour market disadvantage) in South Africa. Placement programmes may help individuals find work, but to the overall welfare impact is undermined by substitution effects. Training programmes should not be seen as an answer to the unemployment problem (although it may help address some labour market problems). Training programmes for the unemployed are often weakly connected with the skill requirements of employers and can easily lead to an over‐supply of specific skills. Given the difficulties involved in targeting the relatively disadvantaged amongst the unemployed, one has to ask whether resources are better spent elsewhere.
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    Social Networks, Employment and Worker Discouragement: Evidence from South Africa
    (Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, 2015-05-28) Godlonton, Susan; Burns, Justine
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    A South African variety of capitalism?
    (Taylor & Francis, 2014) Nattrass, Nicoli
    This paper explores the South African political economy through the lens of a variety of capitalism (VoC) approach. It argues that attempts were made in the early post-apartheid period to forge a more social-democratic and co-ordinated variety of capitalism, but that this floundered as the government adopted neoliberal macroeconomic policies against the wishes of organised labour, and as black economic empowerment policies further undermined an already racially-fraught business sector. Organised labour was able to push for, and maintain, protective labour market policies – but this came at the cost of growing policy inconsistency notably with regard to trade liberalisation which, in the presence of growing labour-market protection, has exacerbated South Africa's unemployment crisis. Unemployment remains intractable (and with it inequality) and corruption/patrimonialism appears to be a growing problem.
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    A South African variety of capitalism?
    (Taylor & Francis, 2013) Nattrass, Nicoli
    This paper explores the South African political economy through the lens of a variety of capitalism (VoC) approach. It argues that attempts were made in the early post-apartheid period to forge a more social-democratic and co-ordinated variety of capitalism, but that this floundered as the government adopted neoliberal macroeconomic policies against the wishes of organised labour, and as black economic empowerment policies further undermined an already raciallyfraught business sector. Organised labour was able to push for, and maintain, protective labour market policies – but this came at the cost of growing policy inconsistency notably with regard to trade liberalisation which, in the presence of growing labour-market protection, has exacerbated South Africa’s unemployment crisis. Unemployment remains intractable (and with it inequality) and corruption/ patrimonialism appears to be a growing problem.