The struggle for gender equality and women's empowerment is central to our transformation. Despite the advances, significantly more progress is required, particularly in the classrooms and workplaces of South Africa, writes Andy Brown.
South African society continues to grapple with all forms of gender discrimination, sexism and patriarchy. This is mostly prevalent in households, in classrooms and in the workplace. While this impacts on all women, black women experience exclusion and discrimination based on their gender, race and class position. This is the case despite the ANC government's efforts to implement institutional and policy reforms to address these inequalities.
The struggle for gender equality and women's empowerment is central to our transformation. This principle is enshrined in Section 9 of the Bill of Rights of the Constitution of South Africa, which not only protects women's rights, but also explicitly prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender.
South Africa has also committed itself to the third Millennium Development Goal: to achieve gender equality and women's empowerment.
Setting targets and changing the profile of classrooms and workplaces is critical. However, this in itself is not sufficient. True gender equality will only be achieved if we work towards eradicating patriarchy. To do so a gendered perspective should be applied to all policies and processes. A gendered perspective looks at fundamentally transforming unequal power relations and recognises that gender inequality manifests itself beyond access to opportunities. It is prevalent in the relationships, values, attitudes and in institutions and structures in the social, political and economic spheres.
In this article we consider progress in gender equality in certain aspects of the economic sphere, focusing on access to education and employment. We argue that while there is increasing opportunity and access, black women continue to be under-represented, under-employed and under-valued. This suggests that concerted efforts should be made to implement substantive change in the economic sphere, through quantitative and qualitative interventions aimed at eradicating patriarchy and gender bias. These efforts will have little success unless similar change occurs in the social and political sphere.
Addressing gender inequality is also an economic imperative. Research indicates that gender inequality in education and gender bias in employment has a direct impact on economic growth. Gender inequality in access to education and resources lowers the average quality of human capital and limits the income generating capability of a substantial portion of the population. Higher levels of education among women will thus impact positively on household incomes and result in higher productivity. One study demonstrated that in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa gender inequality may have reduced growth by 0.3% and, further, that gender differences between the poorest quartile and the richest quartile of countries by per capita income are evident. In the poorest countries, 5.4% of adult women have some secondary education, compared to 11.6% of adult males. In the richest countries, the comparable figures are 50.8% of women and 57.9% of men.1
The ANC government's commitment to the promotion of gender equality has been demonstrated by the establishment of institutions and the drafting of key policy and legislative measures, including:
GENDER EQUALITY IN EDUCATION
There are signs of increased access of black females to formal education.
All indicators show that there are improvements in black females graduating from secondary into tertiary education. However, the numbers are very low and it is not necessarily an indication of success in tertiary education, further education and training or in the labour market. While the participation of Africans in education has increased, African women have, on average, significantly lower levels of education compared to all other groups.
In primary and secondary education, enrolment and achievement rates of black females reflect much greater equity. Although, females are increasingly performing better than males at school, few continue to degree level.
With regard to matric qualifications, African females showed an increase of 5.9% from 1996 to 2001, though this was lower in the post-matric category (2.8%). Within the coloured community, the female percentage for matric increased by 10% compared with males at 8.3%.3 In 2004, more females than males wrote matric exams although the male pass rate was higher. There remain low numbers of black people passing maths and physical sciences at higher grade in matric and even lower for black females. This significantly limits options in higher education.4 Formerly white schools now have greater levels of attendance by black learners, but there are insignificant levels of attendance by white, coloured and Indian learners into formerly African schools.5 Inequities remain in the capacity and resources of formerly African schools and consequently in the quality of the education. Household and societal conditions also have an impact on the ability of students in under-developed areas to keep pace with schooling.
Research indicates that approximately 5% of the population aged 22 and above has higher education, with black women constituting the smallest percentage, despite some progress in the numbers of black women who are graduating. In 2001, 33.5% of university and technikon qualifications were awarded to black women and more than half to women.6 These findings are corroborated by research conducted by the Community Agency for Social Enquiry (CASE), which indicates an increase in black women graduates at almost 8% per annum, significantly boosting the overall increase of black graduates (in 2004 70% of graduates were black).
Despite the increase in the number of black women, choice of field of study and lower levels of progression into postgraduate level place black women at a disadvantage when seeking employment. Enrolment into certain fields remains predominantly white and male, especially engineering, sciences and technology.7 The Labour Force Survey (LFS) September 2006 reinforces these findings, demonstrating that among discouraged work-seekers two out of three women are considered discouraged work-seekers, compared to one in three males.
For those black women who are employed, the benefits of workplace training are limited. Many firms continue to view skills development requirements as merely a new tax. Levy paying participation rates are around 65.5%, with only 10.4% of levy paying firms participating in the levy grant system.
Training tends to be used for upgrading the skills base of existing employees in their current occupations and workplaces, or for routine or technical requirements.8 It is difficult to assess the impact of workplace training, as the recording of skills spend is inadequate in relation to type of training and on who it is spent, with companies only now beginning to record training spend in terms of gender and race. The emphasis in the BEE Codes that a portion of spend should be targeted towards black women should help. More importantly, learnerships and apprenticeships that are encouraged by the codes, if focused on black women, may provide the vital link between secondary or tertiary education and the labour market.
GENDER EQUALITY IN EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES
Across all aspects of the workplace and in the labour market black women continue to be under-represented. Black women are the most affected by unemployment and under-employment; black women dominate the least remunerative, less skilled jobs and find themselves more and more as casual workers. The following trends provide some indication of this situation9:
Agriculture, mining and construction sectors are the worst performers in terms of representation of black women in management categories, with an average representation of 2% black women in senior management. The overall representation of black people in senior management in these sectors averages at 14% for agriculture and mining and 35% for construction.
Table 1: Comparison of black representation in management levels and in selected occupational categories 2001 to 2005
Sources: CEE report 2002; CEE report 2004; EE Report 2005; CEE report 2005, LFS report 2005
The pace of addressing gender inequality in classrooms and in the workplace remains a major challenge. In short, the data suggests a lack of fundamental change in the ability of black women to participate in, benefit from and control economic resources. While empowerment is taking place, it is slow and not benefiting black women as much as it is black men.
In schooling a number of factors influence the success of black females, their ability to graduate and their choice of further study, if that happens at all. Gender inequality and bias in households, in the social sphere and in access to resources are of considerable influence.
Most changes in the racial profile of the workforce indicate that black men are benefiting more than black women, although compared to white males, black people generally lag far behind in representation of senior and middle management, professionals and in skilled positions.
The BEE codes attempt to address this slow progress and also give impetus to the EE Act, by setting targets against which companies will be measured. In management control, employment equity and in skills development, these targets have effectively been set for black women at 50% of the overall black target. Similarly, although not discussed here, there is a target for the participation of black women in ownership of enterprises. It is also expected that the codes will incentivise procurement from and enterprise development of companies owned by black women. These targets may produce a faster rate of change than the voluntary target setting of the EE Act, which has not been an unqualified success.
Critics of the proposed targets suggest that employment equity is only achievable through significant investment in skills development. They charge that to be realistic, targets must reflect current levels of equity and graduation trends from secondary and tertiary education.
There are gradual improvements in schooling and at tertiary level, especially for black females. However, black females are not entering the labour market at the same pace or at the same position as other groups.
While the mismatch between output of schooling, the possibilities of entering further and higher education and employment opportunities is experienced by black people, it is far worse for black women. There is therefore an urgent need to gain a deeper understanding of this problem and to develop targeted mechanisms to bridge the education and labour market space for black females in particular.
In the workplace, the reality is that availability of skills is but one of several factors impacting on attaining employment equity and gender equality. Other factors include corporate culture, top management commitment to transformation, gender-sensitive workplaces, retention and promotion policies and sector growth.
The weakness of the codes is that they do not address representation at other levels of the workforce. In the context where black women are predominantly located in elementary and semi-skilled positions, targets for black women below junior management or skilled levels would have been helpful.
Moreover, little is said of qualitative measures to eradicate sexism or gender bias in the workplace. Despite the targets for black women, the focus in most enterprises appears to be on addressing racial integration, with little effort being given to gender and non-sexism.
The impact of the BEE Act and the EE Act should be evaluated with a gendered perspective in mind to improve our knowledge of the benefit of the legislation for black women and to make recommendations that will enhance the ability of the legislation to address gender transformation in enterprises. For now, enterprises should at least be required to report on what they are doing to address these qualitative commitments.
Gender equality and economic development are mutually reinforcing and therefore gender equality is critical for growth. The income differentials for black women and the location of black women predominantly into elementary and semi-skilled categories does not assist in building a competitive economy, in the same way that equity in income and greater levels of inclusion could.
The assumption that a greater number of women in management positions or in the classroom suggests a more gender-sensitive climate is obviously not always the case, the data at hand demonstrates as much. Legislation and targets can only resolve part of the problem. Gender equality in the economic sphere requires a holistic approach with business, government and communities demonstrating the will and making the effort to bring about this transformation.
* Andy Brown is a consultant specialising in economic empowerment policy and strategy.
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