Recent research has found that changing policies and attitudes and improved economic performance have impacted on the labour market dynamics for women and the increased feminisation of the South African labour force since the mid-1990s has been well documented. While employment has increased...

This country study evaluates the experience of the South African economy with respect to growth, poverty and inequality trends since the advent of democracy in 1994. The postapartheid government took a definite turn toward greater spending on social security, while job creation and a narrowing...

This paper aims to introduce selected issues from the international literature on skills training into the South African policy forum. Reform of national strategies in skills production has characterised a number of industrial as well as certain developing economies in recent decades. Their...

Regulatory compliance costs impose a deadweight burden on firms and should therefore be minimised. In achieving this goal, it is necessary to embrace a process of smart regulation, rather than focus on deregulation. Tax compliance cost is one type of regulatory costs that is often viewed to have...

This paper examines South African wage earnings trends using all the available post-1994 household survey datasets. This allows us to identify and address the sources of data inconsistencies across surveys in order to construct a more comparable earnings time series. Taking account of the...

The paper reflects on the findings from a firm survey conducted among twenty of South Africa's largest firms across a range of sectors. The survey formed part of research conducted by the Development Policy Research Unit on graduate unemployment in South Africa. The firm interviews traversed a...

The paper aims to identify the impacts of sector-specific policies and regulations on the growth of - and job creation by - SMEs in eight sectors of the South African economy. Where appropriate and, where possible, impacts are quantified. The aim is also to develop suggestions for policy changes...

There is consensus among analysts that South Africa's unemployment is structural in the sense that the unemployed generally possess lower skills than what is required in the marketplace. In the context of increasing demand for skilled workers due to technical progress and the need to become more...

Sector Education and Training Authorities (Setas), established in terms of the Skills Development Act, 97 of 1998, were launched amid much fanfare and expectation of delivery towards achieving a skills revolution in the country. Upon their immediate establishment in March 2000, these perceived...

This paper provides an institutional analysis of the South African Spatial Development Initiative (SDI) policy. It deals, firstly, with the concept of regional institutional structure, secondly, with the SDI program in South Africa and how it attempts to address national industrial strategy...