Profile of young people not in employment, education or training (NEET) aged 15-24 years in South Africa: an annual update

This paper presents the latest profile of young people aged 15 to 24 not in education, employment, or training (NEET) in South Africa, utilising data from the Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS), Quarter 1, and the General Household Survey (GHS). The findings reveal that South Africa has consistently had a NEET youth rate above 30% for the past decade, with over 3 million young people affected. This signifies a failure to achieve SDG 8, Target 8.6, of substantially reducing the proportion of NEET youth by 2020 and poses a risk to the country's progress towards the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Contrary to popular belief, our findings dispel the misconceptions that NEET youth are disinterested or unwilling to work, as more than 2 million of these youth expressed wanting to work. The analysis shows that a significant portion of the unemployed NEETs are new entrants to the labour market who have been searching for employment for extended periods, exceeding one year or even five years. Additional analysis shows that a staggering 2.4 million (68.5%) of young NEETs continue to reside in income-poor households. The analysis further identifies being female, married, residing in urban areas, living in income-poor households and households with children under seven years as key factors associated with being NEET among youths. Being married and living in income-poor households are the most influential factors in the likelihood of being NEET among young people. These findings carry important policy implications for reducing the NEET rate in South Africa and for fostering increased educational and labour market engagement among young people.This paper was supported through the EU-AFD Research Facility on Inequalities

Developing a Youth Labour Market Index for South Africa at the sub-national level

Assessing the labour market situation for young people is a critical area of research that has attracted the attention of scholars and policymakers globally. However, understanding the complexity of the labour market for youth, particularly in developing countries, requires a comprehensive, multidimensional approach. We address this need by developing a Youth Labour Market Index (YLMI) for South Africa, incorporating ten indicators that capture the unique youth labour market situation from various perspectives. Drawing on nationally representative data from the Quarterly Labour Force Survey for the period 2013-2023, the YLMI provides a nuanced understanding of the labour market for 15-35-year-olds, and further allows for the identification of variations in the labour market’s functionality for various subgroups of the youth population. The study reveals alarmingly low YLMI scores for South Africa and its nine provinces, which have decreased over time. Significant gender and rural-urban disparities in the distribution of the YLMI scores are observed, and the YLMI scores exhibit an unequal spatial distribution, with lower values concentrated in provinces in former homeland areas. Further analysis reveals that the working conditions and education dimensions are the primary contributors to the low YLMI score, highlighting their role as major drivers of the underperforming youth labour market. Specifically, relative unemployment, skills mismatch, vulnerable employment, and lack of secondary education are the key indicators contributing to the low YLMI scores, with vulnerable employment being particularly critical. These results highlight that the South African labour market for youth is highly dysfunctional and has worsened over time. A defunct labour market entrenches inequality by contributing to further unemployment, pointing to an urgent need for policymakers to address the deteriorating situation. The YLMI provides a valuable tool for informing and targeting the necessary policies and interventions to promote a well-functioning labour market for youth.This paper was supported through the EU-AFD Research Facility on Inequalitie

The impact of migration on the welfare of migrant sending households in selected rural areas of Zimbabwe

Incomes are volatile in poor communities and sometimes households live on less than a dollar per day. To cushion themselves from volatile income, poor families resort to borrowing from friends and job hunting. Establishing a business enterprise is also among alternatives adopted by family members in trying to reduce financial vulnerability. However, the business enterprise option is impeded by lack of capital, thus household units end up considering migration as an indirect strategy to escape poverty. The New Economics of Labour Migration theory, recognizes family participation in migration decisions as a strategy for moving out of poverty, thus signaling potential welfare linkages between migrants and family members left behind. The current study investigates the impact of migration on welfare of migrant sending households in rural Zimbabwe using cross-sectional data. The study employs a Counterfactual approach and utilizes a two stage Heckman selection model to control for selection bias. Preliminary results indicate that on average, migration impacts household welfare positively but the welfare gains are not evenly distributed among households

South African student retention during 2020: Evidence from system wide higher education institutional data

Using longitudinal, institutional data we document the impact of COVID-19 on undergraduate student retention at public universities in South Africa. We find that student dropout increased in 2020 for students in 3-5th year, with little evidence of a change for those entering their second year of study. These aggregate findings mask significant differences across institutions. Students enrolled in most historically advantaged traditional institutions, and some comprehensive institutions, were not significantly affected, whereas dropout increased significantly at the University of Fort Hare, Walter Sisulu University and the University of Venda, three historically disadvantaged institutions located in rural areas. No difference in retention is found, however, for students enrolled at the University of Zululand (UZ) or the University of Limpopo (UL), equally resource-disadvantaged institutions where a majority (over 90%) of students are funded via the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS). Furthermore, at institutions where dropout increased, NSFAS-funded students were less impacted than their unfunded peers. Our overall findings accord with growing evidence that COVID-19-related changes in the sector differentially impacted students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. However, they also illustrate that the NSFAS bursary appears to have provided a social safety net during this time. Finally, the example of UZ and the UL provide suggestive evidence that institutional relational aspects are important too. Together, these results foreground the complex interplay of factors impacting a students decision to drop out of or remain in university, highlighting that institutional responses and/or relational context during a crisis like COVID-19 can positively impact student retention.Classification codes: I24, I22, I23This research was made possible by a grant from the Spencer Foundation (grant number 202100035). The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Spencer Foundation

Protests in Latin America in the middle of ongoing global systemic crises

The last years have observed a series of mounting challenges that have deepened tensions in the region, as illustrated by the increase in the number of protests in the region. The increase in tensions relate to the intersection of worsening of living conditions for millions of citizens- a consequence of the pandemic, the ripple effects of Russian aggression towards Ukraine, and the concerns about a coming global recession. These tensions will bring challenges to political systems across the region, manifested in the occurrence of different types of protests, and the risk of declining support for democracy in Latin America, should governments fail to respond to the demands of their citizens.This working paper is a draft version of a forthcoming book chapter in: South America, Central America and the Caribbean 2022 Regional Survey 2024 (Routledge

Allocative efficiency between and within the formal and informal manufacturing sector in Zimbabwe

Resource misallocation has the potential to reduce aggregate total factor productivity and undermine industrial development. These effects can be particularly pronounced in emerging economies where large market frictions impede efficient resource allocation. This paper investigates the extent and nature of resource misallocation between and within the formal and informal manufacturing sector in Zimbabwe. Applying the approach developed by Hsieh & Klenow (2009) to firm-level microdata, the results reveal extensive resource misallocation in both the formal and informal manufacturing sector. Misallocation is more pronounced in informal sector firms and is associated with relatively large capital market distortions. Further, misallocation is more pronounced amongst relatively productive firms, thus exacerbating aggregate losses in total factor productivity (TFP). Estimates indicate that aggregated gains in TFP of 126.7% can be realized through efficient resource allocation.An updated version of this working paper is forthcoming in the World Bank Economic Review. This is a joint SALDRU and PRISM working paper.Financial support for this project was provided by the United Kingdom Department for International Development (now Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO)) funded Growth and Labour Markets in Low Income Countries Programme (“GLM | LIC”) (GA-C3-RA6-345) managed by the Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) and administered by the Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit at the University of Cape Town

What can we understand about learning losses in 2020 from university application and enrolment data?

This paper investigates potential grade 12 learning losses in 2020 using applications and enrolment data from the University of Cape Town (UCT). Using difference-in-difference strategies, we find suggestive evidence of learning loss in the state National Senior Certificate (NSC) in 2020 among both applicants and enrolees. For enrolees, we observe lower first-year academic performance, as measured by Grade Point Average, among those who enrolled in 2021 and wrote the 2020 NSC, compared to students who enrolled in 2021 but wrote the NSC in before 2020. In the applications data, we observe a negative change in the relationship between a student’s grade 11 and grade 12 marks compared to pre-pandemic trends. Specifically, given grade 11 marks, we observe lower average NSC scores for students who wrote the NSC in 2020, compared to similar students in previous years. The effect appears to be driven by students at the lower end of the grade 11 academic performance distribution in the UCT data. Despite expectations that the impact of school closures in 2020 may have differed by school quintile, the UCT applications data indicate similar effects across school quintiles. This could potentially reflect the prioritisation of grade 12s during school closures, or the select sample of students who apply to UCT from under-resourced schools. The improved maths performance that we observe for writers of the 2020 NSC in the applications data was not expected, but this could reflect adjustments to individual NSC subjects. Overall, this study sheds light on the complexities of quantifying learning losses, particularly at the nexus of secondary and tertiary education, and prompts a need for ongoing investigation on the longer-term ramifications of learning losses (e.g. on performance at tertiary level over time and changes in the composition of who enrols).This research was made possible by a grant from the Spencer Foundation (grant number 202100035). The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Spencer Foundation

COVID-19 Vaccine Survey (CVACS) Survey 2 Key Findings: Slide Deck

The COVID-19 Vaccine Survey (CVACS) aims to collect high quality, timely information to inform the development of campaigns and programmes to improve COVID-19 vaccination uptake in South Africa. This slide deck contains findings based on Survey 2 of CVACS, which included 3608 unvaccinated respondent interviews and 386 vaccinated respondent interviews. The results in the slide deck have been adjusted using design weights for cross-sectional analysis and panel weights for longitudinal analysis

CVACS Survey 1 Key Findings

The COVID-19 Vaccine Survey (CVACS) aims to collect high quality, timely information to inform the development of campaigns and programmes to improve COVID-19 vaccination uptake in South Africa. This slide deck contains findings based on the full sample of 3521 Survey 1 participants of CVACS, and thus updates the Preliminary findings from the CVACS Survey 1 (based on the first 2000 interviews from Survey 1) which were released in a webinar on 14 December 2021. The results in the slide deck have been adjusted using survey weights

COVID-19 Vaccine Survey (CVACS) Survey 1 Key Findings: Policy Brief

The COVID-19 Vaccine Survey (CVACS) aims to collect high quality, timely information to inform the development of campaigns and programmes to improve COVID-19 vaccination uptake in South Africa. This policy brief provides an overview of the key findings based on the full sample of 3521 Survey 1 participants of CVACS