Research Articles (Development Studies)

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10413/6665

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Households and labour migration in post-apartheid South Africa.
(2010) Posel, Dorrit Ruth.
This study compares measures of labour migration and remittance receipt in the National Income Dynamics Study with measures generated using earlier national household surveys conducted in South Africa. Household survey data suggest that although the temporary migration of individuals for employment reasons remained a persistent feature of the first decade post apartheid, the extent of labour migration and remittance receipt has fallen significantly in recent years. The study also considers how differences in the collection of information on labour migration may affect the comparability of measures across the surveys.
Is there evidence of a wage penalty to female part-time employment in South Africa?
(2008-09) Posel, Dorrit Ruth.; Muller, Colette Lynn.
In this paper, we investigate female part-time employment in South Africa. Using household survey data for South Africa from 1995 to 2004, we show that women are over-represented in part-time employment, and that the growth in part-time work has been an important feature of the feminisation of the labour force. In contrast to many studies of part-time work in other countries, however, we find evidence of a significant wage premium to female part-time employment. The premium is also robust to fixed effects estimations using Labour Force Survey panel data from 2001 to 2004, where controlling for unobservable differences increases its size. The premium persists with different hourly thresholds defining part-time employment and when we account for possible reporting errors in hours worked.
Revisiting informal employment and segementation in the South African labour market.
(2008) Heintz, James.; Posel, Dorrit Ruth.
This study revisits the definition of informal employment, and it investigates the puzzle of high open unemployment co-existing with relatively limited informal employment in South Africa. We estimate earnings equations using data from the September 2004 Labour Force Survey and present evidence of persistent earnings differentials not only between formal and informal employment, but also between types of informal employment. These persistent earnings differentials are suggestive of complex segmentation in the South African labour market and challenge the presentation of informal employment as an undifferentiated residual with no barriers to entry or mobility.
The male marital earnings premium in the context of bride wealth payments: evidence from South Africa.
(2010) Casale, Daniela Maria.; Posel, Dorrit Ruth.
This study explores the nature of the male marital earnings premium in the context of a developing country in which the payment of bride wealth is practiced. We use data from the South African Labor Force Survey of September 2004 and the Labor Force Survey Panel (2001–4), the first national panel available in South Africa. We show that a robust and positive premium to marriage in cross‐sectional estimations is substantially reduced after controlling for individual fixed effects. Furthermore, we find evidence of an additional source of endogeneity created by the positive selection of men into marriage with faster earnings growth in the initial periods of the panel. Our results are to be expected if the payment of bride wealth or ilobolo, by a prospective husband to the bride’s family, is a significant constraint to marriage among black men in South Africa.

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Browsing Research Articles (Development Studies) by Author "Posel, Dorrit Ruth."