The Labour Supply of Sex Workers in Cape Town

Matthew Butler-Adams and Justine Burns ()
Additional contact information
Matthew Butler-Adams: SALDRU, School of Economics, University of Cape Town
Justine Burns: SALDRU, School of Economics, University of Cape Town

No 60, SALDRU Working Papers from Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town

Abstract: Traditional labour economics predicts that the supply of labour will increase as earnings increase. However, labour supply need not be positive, especially if workers make decisions based on short-term income targets. Income targeting may best describe jobs where workers decide on working hours and where wages are uncorrelated across days. This paper examines the labour supply of sex workers in Cape Town, whose working conditions largely fulfill these criteria. Contrary to traditional economic theory, we find evidence of a negative labour supply curve.

Keywords: Labour supply; sex workers; hyperbolic discounting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 18 pages
Date: 2011-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://opensaldru.uct.ac.za/bitstream/handle/11090/57/2011_60.pdf?sequence=1 Full text (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ldr:wpaper:60

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in SALDRU Working Papers from Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Alison Siljeur ().