This article appraises the similarities and dissimilarities between the major sources of information on the South African labour force, ie the CSS Employment Series, the Standardised Employment Series and recent household surveys. It concludes that the generally bleak picture of very high...

While in many African countries open unemployment is largely confined to urban areas and thus overall rates are quite low, in South Africa open unemployment rates hover around 30%, with rural unemployment rates being even higher than that. This is despite the near complete absence of an...

High unemployment in many OECD countries is often attributed, at least in part, to the generosity and long duration of unemployment compensation. It is therefore instructive to examine a country where high unemployment exists despite the near complete absence of an unemployment insurance system....

The paper examines heterogeneity in programme outcomes from Bolsa Família, a flagship social assistance programme in Brazil reaching 14 million households. Following a review of existing evidence on mean impacts, the paper develops and estimates the first panel data quantile regression model of...

Using three waves of the KwaZulu-Natal Income Dynamics Study (KIDS), panel data collected in South Africa’s most populous province between 1993 and 2004, this paper re-investigates patterns of chronic and structural poverty previously identified from the first two waves. The 2004 wave...

In this paper we analyse household income mobility dynamics among Africans in South Africa’s most populous province, Kwazulu-Natal, between 1993 and 1998. Compared to industrialized and most developing countries, mobility has been quite high, as might have been expected after the transition in...