Education and Inequality: The South African Case

Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit

Education and Inequality: The South African Case by Nicola Branson, Julia Garlick, David Lam and Murray Leibbrandt

Working Paper Series Number 75

About the Author(s) and Acknowledgments Nicola Branson is a senior researcher at the Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit (SALDRU). Julia Garlick is a graduate student in Economics at Yale University. David Lam is Professor of Economics and Research Professor in the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan. Murray Leibbrandt is a Professor of Economics and Director of SALDRU at the University of Cape Town. Support for this research was provided by the U.S. National Institute of Child Health and Human Devel opment (Grants R01HD39788 and R01HD045581), the Fogarty International Center of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (D43TW000657), the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Centre for Development Enterprise. Murray Leibbrandt acknowledges the Research Chairs Initiative of the Department of Science and Technology and National Research Foundation for funding his work as the Research Chair in Poverty and Inequality.

Recommended citation Branson, N., Garlick, J., Lam, D., Leibbrandt, M. (2012). Education and Inequality: The South African Case. A Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit Working Paper Number 75. Cape Town: SALDRU, University of Cape Town

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Education and Inequality: The South African Case
Nicola Branson, Julia Garlick, David Lam and Murray Leibbrandt SALDRU

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Development and the Next Generation, World Bank Publications, 2 – 21. 25 southern africa labour and development research unit The Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit (SALDRU) conducts research directed at improving the well-being of South Africa’s poor. It was established in 1975. Over the next two decades the unit’s research played a central role in documenting the human costs of apartheid. Key projects from this period included the Farm Labour Conference (1976), the Economics of Health Care Conference (1978), and the Second Carnegie Enquiry into Poverty and Development in South Africa (1983-86). At the urging of the African National Congress, from 1992-1994 SALDRU and the World Bank coordinated the Project for Statistics on Living Standards and Development (PSLSD). This project provide baseline data for the implementation of post-apartheid socio-economic policies through South Africa’s first non-racial national sample survey. In the post-apartheid period, SALDRU has continued to gather data and conduct research directed at informing and assessing anti-poverty policy. In line with its historical contribution, SALDRU’s researchers continue to conduct research detailing changing patterns of well-being in South Africa and assessing the impact of government policy on the poor. Current research work falls into the following research themes: post-apartheid poverty; employment and migration dynamics; family support structures in an era of rapid social change; public works and public infrastructure programmes, financial strategies of the poor; common property resources and the poor. Key survey projects include the Langeberg Integrated Family Survey (1999), the Khayelitsha/Mitchell’s Plain Survey (2000), the ongoing Cape Area Panel Study (2001-) and the Financial Diaries Project. www.saldru.uct.ac.za Level 3, School of Economics Building, Middle Campus, University of Cape Town Private Bag, Rondebosch 7701, Cape Town, South Africa Tel: [phone] Fax: [phone] Web: www.saldru.uct.ac.za