The Gender Wage Gap in Post-Apartheid South Africa: A Re-examination

We analyse the gender wage gap for Africans in post-apartheid South Africa and, using the recentred influence function (RIF), decompose the changes in the wage gap along the distribution into explained and unexplained contributions related to various factors. Using the latest nationally representative household survey—the 2007 Labour Force Survey—from which wage data are available, we find the following: first, the gender wage gap is higher at the bottom of the wage distribution than at the top; second, the constant or ‘pure discrimination’ accounts for the majority of the gap between the 20 and 50th quantiles; third, negative or favourable unexplained contributions related to a positive policy shock for domestic workers at the 20 and 30th quantiles and formal sector employment both served to narrow the gap between the 20 and 50th quantiles; finally, between the 70 and 90th quantiles, large and positive unexplained contributions associated mainly with degree holders, wage-employed workers and public sector and managerial workers (at the 90th quantile) were tempered by both endowment effects in favour of women and negative unexplained contributions. The favourable endowment effects arise mainly from workers with higher education, professional workers, public sector workers and workers in the formal sector (at the 90th quantile), while negative unexplained contributions were mainly related to the constant or ‘pure favourable discrimination’.