What Have We Learnt about Unemployment from Microdatasets in South Africa?

This paper summarises the findings of four recent papers by the authors on different aspects of unemployment in South Africa. Based on statistical analysis using household datasets, the papers are concerned with the impact of local unemployment on local wages; the appropriate definition and measure of unemployment in the particular circumstances of the South African labour market; the nature of unemployment, i.e. the extent to which it can be described as voluntary; and the pattern of incidence of unemployment, with particular focus on explaining the large racial gap in the unemployment rate. Acknowledgement The research summarised here was conducted with the support of a grant from the UK Government’s Department for International Development. Biographical note on authors Geeta Kingdon is a Research Officer in the Department of Economics, University of Oxford. She has researched labour market issues in both India and South Africa. In India, her research has concentrated on economic returns to education and gender discrimination in the labour market. In South Africa, she has worked on the causes, nature and consequences of unemployment. John Knight is Professor and Head of the Department of Economics, University of Oxford. He has conducted research and published extensively on labour markets in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Ghana, Kenya, and Tanzania, as well as on the emerging labour market in China.