Wage Trends in Post-Apartheid South Africa: Constructing an Earnings Series from Household Survey Data

Rulof Burger and Derek Yu ()
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Derek Yu: Department Of Economics, Stellenbosch University

Working Papers from University of Cape Town, Development Policy Research Unit

Abstract: 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 inconsistencies in questionnaire design and the presence of outliers, we find that it is possible to construct a fairly stable earnings series for formal sector employees. We find that claims that workers have on average experienced a substantial decrease in their real wage earnings in the post-apartheid era is based on choosing datasets on either side of Statistics South Africa’s changeover from October Household Surveys (OHS) to the more consistent Labour Force Surveys (LFS), which caused a discontinuous and inexplicably large drop in average earnings. The data actually show an increase in real wage earnings in the post-transition period for formal sector employees, and does not provide strong evidence of decreasing wages in the informal economy. The paper also investigates changes in the distribution of earnings, as well as mean earnings trends by population group, gender and skill category.

Keywords: South Africa: Earnings; Wages; Labour market trends (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 19 pages
Date: 2007-02
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Published in Working Paper Series by the Development Policy Research Unit, February 2007, pages 1-19

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http://hdl.handle.net/11427/7343 First version, 2007 (application/pdf)

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Working Paper: Wage trends in post-apartheid South Africa: Constructing an earnings series from household survey data (2006)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ctw:wpaper:07117

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