Undercurrent-Issue-Fall-Winter-2014-3

" Survey results indicate a high level of poverty in South Africa despite legal and political initiativesimplemented to increase the wellbeing of women. According to Hoogeveen and Ozler, “there wereapproximately 1.8 million (2.3 million) more South Africans in 2000 living with less than $1/day ($2/day)than there were in 1995. Inequality increased mainly due to a sharp increase among the Africanpopulation” (2005, p.5)." Following the Apartheid regime, the 1996 Constitution was created and was the mostprogressive constitution on the continent. The constitution, “legalized abortion, giving women equalpower in marriage, banning all gender discrimination and providing women of any skin color with thesame degree of affirmative action in education, employment, politics” (The Economist, 2010, para. 2)." Theoretically, South Africa has experienced progress in the promotion of women’s rights. Inpractice, some sectors are progressing faster than others. For example, in the political sphere “womenhold 44 percent of parliamentary seats, the third highest proportion in the world and 41 percent cabinetposts including many of those often assigned to men: defense, agriculture, foreign affairs, mining,science and technology, and home affairs” (The Economist, 2010, para. 3) including many of the cabinetposts traditionally assigned to men such as defense and home affairs." In other areas of society, the wellbeing of women has not improved as expected. This isparticularly evident in aspects of the public sector but primarily in the private sector. The EmploymentEquity Act requires that, “companies with over fifty employees, must hire and promote women inproportion to their representation in the population as a whole at 52%, however in reality white men stilldominate senior management” (The Economist, 2010, para. 4). Moreover, according to the Women’sBusiness Association, “a fifth of the country’s private sector boards have no women, and in universitiesfemales are more than half of the graduates, however account for 45 percent of the academic staff” (TheEconomist, 2010, para. 4). This does not mean that female graduates finding academic positions is notprogress; nonetheless it is a pattern that exists in gender discriminatory countries because teaching isone of the main ‘traditional’ employment options for women throughout history." Finally, that women make up almost half of the formal labour force is a positive trend; however, itis important to look at which roles they play compared to their male counterparts. Women “are in lowerwagesectors, particularly domestic service and on average women still get less than two-thirds of aman’s pay packet” (The Economist, 2010, para. 5)." The level of poverty among women-headed households is higher than the average and womencontinue to earn less than men, even though differences education levels have narrowed significantly, asone can observe in the GDI. South Africa’s National Planning Commission state, “about 61#percent ofwomen live in poverty, and 31#percent live in destitution, compared with 39#percent and 18#percent ofmen respectively” (2011, p.2).CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE GDI AND GEM IN THE CONTEXT IN SOUTH AFRICA: LIMITATIONSOF THE MEASURES" The 2007-2008 Human Development UNDP Report provided rationale for valuing the estimatedincome in both GEM and GDI and stated that, “the income measure in the GDI and GEM indicates aperson’s capacity to earn income. It is used in the GDI to capture the disparities between men andwomen in command over resources and in the GEM to capture women’s economic independence (2008,p. 361). However, in computing the GDI and GEM, estimated income for females is problematic becausethe indicator is based on an estimate of the female share in earned income." Specifically it is a problem of defining what constitutes an ‘economically active population’. Theestimated income is calculated from the total female share in the economically active population. Forexample, if family enterprises and subsistence activities are not included in defining an economicallyactive population, many individuals will be excluded, particularly women, as they tend to largely make up32