Gender wage discrimination in south Africa within the affirmative action framework

The issue of gender wage discrimination and women empowerment has gained a great deal of local and international attention. However, gender-based discrimination persists worldwide, depriving women of their basic rights and opportunities. Affirmative action policies have been adopted by many countries around the world as a means to address these inequalities in employment and education while promoting diversity, and redressing historical wrongdoings. Despite some progress made worldwide, however, gender wage disparities remain particularly high in South Africa. Hence, the question remains about whether these affirmative action measures have yet to achieve their intended effects. This study investigates the trends in gender wage disparities by occupation before and after the introduction of affirmative action measures. By conducting an empirical analysis within the South African context, we examine gender wage discrimination within the Affirmative Action Framework, employing a BlinderOaxaca decomposition model for the years 1997 and 2015, the period for which data are available. The study employs the Post Apartheid Labor Market Series (PALMS) which synchronizes important labor market variables derived from the October Household Surveys, the Labor Force Surveys and the Quarterly Labor Force Surveys. The results of the kernel density function, OLS regression and Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition analyses suggest that the estimated differences in earnings between males and females for the full sample fell significantly during the period in question. Reassuringly, disaggregating the sample by occupation yields similar estimates obtained in the full sample - decrease in estimated differences in earnings between males and females. This surprising result should, however, not entirely be interpreted as a decline in discrimination per se, but also an increase in the productive characteristics of females over time. It is also interesting to observe that in some occupations (professionals and clerks) the explained component enters with a negative sign, implying that females in these occupations have better labor market features than their male counterparts. However, the persistence of gender earnings inequality, especially at certain occupational levels, driven by discrimination and other non-productive factors, suggest the need for an adjustments and structural reforms in the current affirmative action policies in order to deal with gender earnings inequality at various le