Earnings and employment microdata in South Africa

Abstract:

Traditionally, analysts of the South African labour market have used household survey data to describe earnings and employment in the post-Apartheid period. More recently, administrative data from the South African Revenue Service has been made available, which allows for comparisons and an assessment of each source and its strengths and weaknesses. There are a number of sources of data, including household surveys, firm surveys, and administrative data, and it can be hard to keep up with all of them. In this paper we thus provide a summary of the main sources of data on earnings and employment and their strengths and weaknesses, to aid researchers and policymakers who wish to make use of these data in their own analysis.