The major cause of poverty is unemployment. This paper looks at aspects of the way government responds to claims that are made, chiefly by academics, about poverty and unemployment. Official statistics on poverty and unemployment enjoy little favour among senior politicians and civil servants....

Simulations suggest that under the most optimistic conditions, halving the official rate of unemployment would require 3.7 million jobs to be created between 2004 and 2014. Halving the number of expanded unemployed under pessimistic assumptions about the growth rate of the economically active...

Abstract: The major cause of poverty is unemployment. This paper looks at aspects of the way government responds to claims that are made, chiefly by academics, about poverty and unemployment. Official statistics on poverty and unemployment enjoy little favour among senior politicians and civil...

This paper seeks an explanation for the large differences in the extent and severity of poverty published respectively in van der Berg et al (2005: 2007a) and Meth (2006b). Headcounts in 2004 suggested by van der Berg et al (2007a) exceed by five million, those reported by (Meth, 2006b)....

The publication by Servaas van der Berg and his colleagues at the University of Stellenbosch last year of a set of estimates of poverty headcounts and gaps, pointed to substantial success in the battle against poverty in South Africa in the period 2000-2004, an improvement attributable mainly to...

The authors use evidence from a survey of about 1200 beneficiaries of South African land reform to assess the performance of the initial phase of the land reform program. They find that the program has not lived up to the quantitative goals set, but did successfully target the poor. It has led...

This report is one of two commissioned by HelpAge International (HAI), which investigates the extent, distribution and nature of chronic poverty among older people in South Africa. In response to the terms of reference provided by HAI, the report includes a comprehensive review of existing...