The Causes of Unemployment in Post‐apartheid Johannesburg and the Livelihood Strategies of the Poor

Abstract

This document is the author's final manuscript accepted version of the journal article, incorporating any revisions agreed during the peer review process. Some differences between this version and the published version may remain. You are advised to consult the publisher's version if you wish to cite from it. THE CAUSES OF UNEMPLOYMENT IN POST APARTHEID JOHANNESBURG AND THE LIVELIHOOD STRATEGIES OF THE POOR Journal of Economic and Social AbstractCentral to the increase in urban poverty in the post-apartheid period is the rise in unemployment, and this provides our point of departure. In the first section of the paper we show how, although Johannesburg and its environs constitute the industrial and commercial heartland of South Africa, it is a city that has not reached its potential economic development. Having outlined the causes and dimensions of the sluggish economic position we move to consider how the poor survive in Johannesburg through both economic and non-economic strategies. With this in mind we then argue that addressing the current situation of growing poverty and inequality (as well as redressing the legacy of past inequities) requires broad municipal response to urban unemployment. Instead of the current tendency to view poverty simply as the product of income and consumption deprivation, a more broadly defined response to urban poverty reduction based on a livelihoods framework is proposed.

Five decades of research on urban poverty: Main research communities, core knowledge producers, and emerging thematic areas

“…In some cases, it is understood as the lack of aggregate supply to urban areas, whereas in other cases it refers to the ability of a household to purchase adequate quantity and quality of food (Maxwell, 1999;Haddad et al, 1999;Ruel, 2000;Tacoli et al, 2013;McFarlane et al, 2014). At the same time, extreme living conditions resulting from urban poverty include additional aspects, such as urban security and violence (Fox and Beall, 2012;Beall et al, 2013;Raleigh, 2015), unemployment as an outcome of economic restructuring (Gilbert, 1995;Beall et al, 2000;Gulyani and Talukdar, 2010) and negative environmental impacts (Bryant, 1993;Satterthwaite, 2003b;Hardoy and Pandiella, 2009). Given the above, the need to provide an integrated approach towards poverty alleviation, encompassing social, economic, political and environmental aspects, is evident.…”

Cities of Entanglements

“…Income inequality within the Black population is nowadays as high as across the entire population (Seekings 2010: 8-9). Although formal unemployment decreased between 1996 and 2011 (from 29.4 to 25%), it is still very high, especially among the youth (Beall, Crankshaw and Parnell 2000a, Harrison et al 2015: 5, Seekings 2010. The informal economy is key for urban dwellers in places like Alexandra (Beall, Crankshaw and Parnell 2000b, Hull and James 2012, Simone 2004b, although the expansion of the welfare state shapes their livelihoods considerably (Ferguson 2013).…”

Examining asymmetric effects in the South African Phillips curve: evidence from logistic smooth transition regression models

“…Further aggravating these problems, the import substitution industrialisation (ISI) policies which were previously adopted by South Africa were beginning to be replaced by export-oriented policies. Thus when import substitution exhausted itself by the end of the 1970's, the manufacturing sector was not established as being internationally competitive and labour productivity in key industrial sectors was low because of the apartheid labour and education systems which were in place at the time (Beall et al, 2000). The overall A. Phiri combination of low productivity and import dependence were worsened by increased volatility of mineral exports and capital inflows, limiting the capacity to adapt to macroeconomic instability and restoration in investment, employment and growth.…”