MEDIA RELEASE                                                                                               27 September 2018

Gender series IV: Economic Empowerment 2001-2017 report

The Gender series IV report on economic empowerment released by Statistics South Africa today indicates that males continue to participate in the labour market at a higher rate than their female counterparts, despite the number of females in the workforce still exceeding that of males. The gap between male and female participation rates also remained relatively stable over the past 16 years, with a 12,4 percentage point difference in 2001 and 12,1 percentage points in 2017.

The report further shows that since 2001, a positive relationship between the levels of educational attainment and the labour force participation rate was observed for all population groups and for both sexes. During this period, the labour force participation rates were the highest for those with a tertiary education, for males as well as females across all population groups. Participation rates for black African males with a tertiary education remained stable at approximately 91% over the reference period, but increased by 1,8 percentage points for their female counterparts

According to the report, there has been an improvement of 4,6 percentage points in the number of female-headed households that owned formal dwellings between 2002 and 2017. The largest percentage increase in number of households headed by females owning formal dwellings was observed in Northern Cape, Western Cape, Free State and Gauteng, whilst marginal declines were reported in North West and Mpumalanga.  The percentage of households that received a housing subsidy, more than doubled between 2002 and 2017 with a slightly higher percentage of female-headed households than male-headed households receiving government-housing subsidies. This is in line with government policies that give preference to households headed by individuals from marginalised groups, including females, and individuals with disabilities.

Between 2009 and 2017, females were more likely than males to receive grants. Since the introduction of the child support grant there has been a steady increase of its recipients from approximately 9 million in 2009 to 13 million in 2017. The most accessed poverty alleviation grant in the country was the child support grant, while the care dependency grant was the least accessed. The old-age grant had the highest gender inequality, because in both years there were

more female old-age grant recipients than male recipients. This can be attributed to the higher longevity of females when compared to males.

The report provides analysis relating to gender disparities in economic empowerment using secondary data from Stats SA, as well as administrative data obtained from external sources. It covers trends in economic empowerment over the past 16-17 years to assess progress made towards gender equality.

Ends

For technical enquiries contact:

Babalwa Nyangintsimbi

Deputy Director: Gender Statistics

Tel: 012 337 6346

Email: BabalwaNy@statssa.gov.za

Dr Isabelle Schmidt

Chief Director: Social Statistics

Tel: 012 337 6379

Email: Isabels@statssa.gov.za

For media enquiries contact:

Ms Lesedi Dibakwane

Director: Media and Public Relations

Tel: 012 310 8578

Cell: 082 805 7088

Email: LesediD@statssa.gov.za

Issued by Statistics South Africa