This paper explores whether South Africa’s social security policies offer consistent, synergistic and long-term positive impacts on poverty and gender, by interrogating the redistributive and transformative outcomes of three different kinds of social security instruments. The instruments...

Women are more likely than men to work in the informal sector and to drop out of the labor force for a time, such as after childbirth, and to be impeded by social norms from working in the formal sector. This work pattern undermines productivity, increases women's vulnerability to income shocks,...