We examine patterns of health seeking behaviour prior to death among 1282 individuals who lived in the Umkhanyakude District of Northern KwaZulu-Natal. Information on the health care choices of these individuals, who died between January 2003 and July 2004, was gathered after their deaths from...

Infrastructure provisions, especially rural roads, have been highlighted in a number of recent studies and reports as an enabling factor for Africa to achieve 'development'. This paper reviews the current limits of rural road knowledge and appraisal procedures raising critical issues about what...

This paper examines the performance of public works in addressing both micro and macroeconomic policy objectives relating to growth, employment and poverty reduction in South Africa. The microeconomic analysis suggests that while participation in a public works programme may contribute to a...

The paper analyses poverty and inequality changes in South Africa for the period 1996 to 2001 using Census data. To gain a broader picture of wellbeing in South Africa, both income-based and access-based measurement approaches are employed. At the national level, findings from the income-based...

A survey of 190 wine and table grape farmers in the Western Cape puts the average wage for farm labour at R928 per month in 2003 and R1123 per month in 2004. Output per worker has doubled since 1983. On farms with grape harvesters, labour is 30 per cent more productive (48 ton/worker) than on...

In the mid-1950s, the City of Cape Town was part of a wider area demarcated as a Coloured Labour Preference Area. The free movement of African people into the city was strictly controlled and the residential areas were segregated along racial lines. In terms of Apartheid's grand design, an area...

I examine the impact of racial identity on behavior in trust games played by White, Black and Colored high school students in South Africa. There is a systematic pattern of distrust towards Black partners, even by Black proposers, partially attributable to mistaken expectations. White proposers...

Sustainable poverty reduction requires that poor households effectively manage risk. The absence of basic financial services is a major obstacle to poverty reduction in South Africa. This paper reviews available South African literature on utilisation of formal and informal risk management...

Using firm-level manufacturing data supplemented with wages from household survey data, this paper estimates translog cost functions to calculate labour demand elasticities and Allen Elasticities of Substitution between capital and four occupation types. It finds that own-price labour demand...

This paper explores the ability of public works programmes (PWPs) to promote employment and reduce poverty. Public works are a key component of the current social protection framework in South Africa, constituting the only significant form of social support for the able-bodied working age...