Search

In South Africa, the focus on the COVID-19 pandemic was primarily directed at establishing the detrimental effects on the economic sector, including how to contain the spread of the virus. Limited attention was paid to how the pandemic affected those who work in the informal sector, particularly the sex industry. This article rests on the premise that while sex work has not been legalized in South Africa, it is nonetheless a vital source of income for those who work in the industry. The article used humanitarianism as a lens to explain the exclusion of sex workers from government social support programs. The article found that there were no designated social and economic programs for sex workers due to their occupation falling outside the legal beneficiary framework. The criminalization of commercial sex work exacerbated poverty and socio-economic desperation during the pandemic and also exposed them to operational risks that included exposure to COVID-19 ailments. Going forward, this article argues for the need to decriminalize commercial sex and the introduction of safety net programs to restore the dignity of sex workers and their livelihoods in the event of crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The South African street food industry is essential in elevating the socioeconomic standing of sellers. However, most studies on street food vending focused on perception, safety, consumption, and handling of street food. Therefore, it is necessary to fill this gap. The study explores street food vending contribution on poverty and unemployment in the Mahikeng Local Municipality. The study's goal was accomplished by using a mixed research methodology. A sample size of 401 respondents were selected for the study and data was obtained using structured, semi-structured and unstructured questionnaires. The study found that street food vending creates jobs not only for the people involved in the trade, but also for people who would otherwise be unemployed, for example, those who are retrenched. In addition, street food distribution has become a cornerstone for vendors to generate income to supplement family income that improved the standard of living of the vendors. Additionally, some vendors were able to acquire assets such as livestock and landed property from the profit made from the business, contributing to reducing poverty incidence among traders in the area. The paper concludes that street food vending has contributed in creating jobs thus, reducing poverty incidence. However, the street food industry continues to confront obstacles such as lack of cash and credit and location-based business restrictions. Therefore, in order for SFV to be effective, steps must be taken to minimise the difficulties affecting the industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pre-Covid-19 world of work was rife with inequalities and difficulties, with more than 40 per cent of working-age South Africans unemployed. The majority of those in employment were barely able to eke out a living - between 20 per cent to 30 per cent were working in the informal economy, mostly without labour rights and social protection and earning low incomes that trapped them in poverty. The precarious nature of the South African labour market before the Covid-19 pandemic was characterised by casualisation, informalisation, and externalisation of work. This resulted in the reduction of the number of workers employed for definite periods and rising levels of precarious workers. This article investigates the precarious nature of work and the various work paradigms present in the South African labour market before the Covid-19 pandemic struck. New challenges arising from the Covid-19 pandemic and new forms of work in the South African labour market are also considered, together with measures taken to address precarity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Africa lags behind among other developing and emerging market economies on business start-ups. Businesses that fail in a year is averaging between 50% and 60%, a figure quite high for a country struggling with achieving sustainable economic growth to reduce unemployment, inequality and poverty. This study identifies issues hurting SMMEs that need attention from both businesses themselves as well as from policymakers. The objective of this study is to identify key business success determinants using cross-sectional data that was randomly collected from informal businesses in Johannesburg/Pretoria in South Africa from 390 informal SMMEs. Using assets ownership as a yardstick for success in an ordered logistic regression, the study finds education status, income, employment growth, centre of operation, financial inclusion, experience, financial literacy and advertising budget were significant in explaining assets ownership (success) in South Africa. This study recommends that the government through its various institutions that deal specifically with small businesses come up with radical business training programmes so as to improve the finance literacy among small business. Also, small business owners should budget to fund their advertising budgets since it is found that advertising has a positive impact of firm success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a growing pool of evidence showing that cash transfers can promote livelihood activities. Yet there has been limited empirical studies that explore how financial support influences beneficiaries' decision-making in the construction and operation of livelihood activities in an urban context. This study presents findings from qualitative research conducted in a poor urban community in South Africa. Structuration theory provides an analytical tool to understand how cash transfers enable decision-making of beneficiaries in livelihood activities. The study finds that beneficiaries make different types of initial and ongoing decisions to improve their socio-economic condition. Among the contributions of this paper is that it counters the cynicism that is usually attached to cash transfers. The study's implications include the incorporation of both social and economic goals in the design of social protection policies as well as the need for greater recognition of the role of the informal economy in eradicating poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Working poverty exists worldwide and has shown an increase in prevalence over the past few decades. Over the years, there has been an increase in the number and severity of low-wage employment, which in turn contributes significantly to poverty. Whilst paid employment has generally been considered as the predominant means to survive financially, salaries may be too low to maintain reasonable living standards. South African research on low-wage employment and working poverty in particular, are rare. Using data from the first four waves of the National Income Dynamics Study, this study fills the existing research gap by examining low-wage employment, working poverty, and low-wage poverty. The empirical findings indicated that all three groups are predominantly lowly-educated, middle-aged African female employees involved in elementary occupations in the informal sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The social work profession has seen significant changes in approach, with more focus on developmental social welfare in response to structural injustices, poverty, inequality, well-being and development. Day labouring is a global phenomenon and typical of the South African informal sector. This study analyses the hardships of day labourers in East London to reflect on developmental social welfare and its relevance for informal workers in South Africa. A sequential explanatory research design and a mixed-methods approach were adopted. In phase 1 (quantitative), 131 participants were interviewed. In the second phase qualitative interviews were conducted with 18 participants at six different hiring sites. The findings reveal that day labourers work under conditions in which even their basic human rights cannot be guaranteed. Failure to take decisive steps to ensure that their rights are upheld amounts to turning a blind eye to the gross exploitation of one segment of society by another. An inclusive, appreciative and participatory approach is needed to facilitate strategies to integrate informal workers such as day labourers into initiatives that are designed to grant social justice to groups who continue to be marginalised and to live in abject poverty more than two decades after the official demise of apartheid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The notion of an inclusive green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication requires an approach that engages with the informal economy. However, the informal economy is generally ignored or undervalued in discussions on the green economy. This paper set out to bolster this argument by identifying the ways in which the green economy and the informal economy may be connected by establishing the extent to which policies and plans relating to green economy connect with the informal economy, and recognising several informal green activities. The barriers and opportunities for connecting the two spheres were also explored as well as possible ways in which such activities may be supported at different levels of organisation. In the case of South Africa, many informal green activities that contribute to sustainable livelihoods are recognised. However, issues pertaining to procedure, process and participation hinder the transition to a truly inclusive green economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is concerned with marginal populations affected by the ‘truncated agrarian transitions’ of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries: people displaced out of land-based employment without reasonable prospects for accumulation in the non-farm economy. It analyses the forms of economic agency of people living in the migrant routes and networks connecting the shantytowns of Cape Town and the rural Eastern Cape in South Africa. It describes the artful and hybrid nature of their livelihood strategies – strategies that involve the integration from ‘below’ of urban and rural spaces, formal and informal income, and which simultaneously take shape outside the regulatory spaces conferred by the state,and make use of the rights and opportunities created by law and formality. Far from being reduced to the ‘outcast’ condition of ‘bare life’, marginalized and poor people in South Africa pursue inventive strategies on uneven terrain, cutting across the dichotomies of official discourse and teleological analysis. This allows a more nuanced analysis of the nature and specificity of the agrarian transition in South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]