Surviving Unemployment Without State Support: Unemployment and Household Formation in South Africa
Surviving Unemployment Without State Support: Unemployment and Household Formation in South Africa
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DOI：
10.1093/jae/ejn007
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发表时间：
2009-01-01
影响因子：
1.6
通讯作者：
Woolard, Ingrid
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Klasen, Stephan;Woolard, Ingrid
虽然在许多非洲国家，公开失业主要局限于城市地区，因此总体失业率相当低，但在南非，公开失业率徘徊在30%左右，农村失业率甚至更高。尽管几乎完全没有失业保险制度，而且几乎没有适用于农村劳动力市场的劳动力市场条例，但情况仍然如此。本文探讨了在没有失业补偿的情况下，失业如何持续下去。通过对1993年、1995年、1998年、2004年和2006年的住户调查进行分析，我们发现失业者的家庭组建反应是失业者确保获得资源的关键方式。特别是，失业使年轻人推迟建立个人家庭，在某些情况下推迟了几十年。有时，这还导致现有家庭解体，成员回到父母和其他亲戚朋友身边。获得国家转移支付（特别是非缴费型养老金）在这一私人安全网中发挥着重要作用。一些失业者没有从这一安全网中受益，失业人员的存在使许多供养他们的家庭陷入贫困。我们还表明，家庭形成的反应吸引了一些失业者远离就业机会，从而降低了他们的就业前景。
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 unemployment insurance system and little labour market regulation that applies to rural labour markets. This paper examines how unemployment can persist without access to unemployment compensation. Analysing household surveys from 1993, 1995, 1998, 2004 and 2006, we find that the household formation response of the unemployed is the critical way in which the unemployed assure access to resources. In particular, unemployment delays the setting up of an individual household by young persons, in some cases by decades. It also sometimes leads to the dissolution of existing households and a return of constituent members to parents and other relatives and friends. Access to state transfers (in particular, non-contributory old age pensions) plays an important role in this private safety net. Some unemployed do not benefit from this safety net, and the presence of unemployed members pulls many households supporting them into poverty. We also show that the household formation response draws some of the unemployed away from employment opportunities, and thus lowers their employment prospects.