Living Standards In South Africa’s Former Homelands

Martine Mariotti ()

ANU Working Papers in Economics and Econometrics from Australian National University, College of Business and Economics, School of Economics

Abstract: I exploit the sudden increase in employment in 1975, 1976 and 1977 in some former homelands by comparing the long term adult physical outcomes of children benefitting from the employment increase to those not subject to it. Using a standard difference in difference approach I find that there was some malnutrition in the homelands resulting in stunting in African men born during the shock providing support to the foetal origins hypothesis. The employment shock did not affect other long term outcomes such as education and general health, although there is some evidence of an improvement in long term health. This study provides previously unmeasured individual level information on the quality of life in the homelands during apartheid, an era when African living standards were neglected but unmeasured because of a lack of data collection.

JEL-codes: I31 N37 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr, nep-dev and nep-lab
Date: 2012-01
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Working Paper: Living Standards In South Africa's Former Homelands (2012)
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