Murray Leibbrandt
Biographic Data
| ID | 122950 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Murray Leibbrandt |
| GIVEN NAMES | Murray |
| FAMILY NAME | Leibbrandt |
| SIGNATURE | LEIBBRANDT M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Cape Town |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0829-8844 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 30 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 100 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 29 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2001 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Studying to Support? Exploring Remittance Responsibilities Among Black South African Graduates
A large majority of Black South Africans remain restricted by intergenerational education and economic disadvantages. Labour market returns to tertiary qualifications are high, but the share of youth accessing post‐secondary education remains low. Under such circumstances, graduates may face unique responsibilities to financially support family members, over and above their income or employment status. We fit a Heckman model for the decision to o…
A dynamic perspective on profiling financial-aid eligibility: The case of South Africa
The sustainable funding of tertiary education is a subject of significant policy debate worldwide. In South Africa, the need to balance equitable access within a constrained fiscal environment has been a complex challenge. A legacy of racially segregated educational opportunities, together with student activism and protests, has shaped the political economy surrounding tertiary education funding. Policymakers continue to be faced with the challen…
Spatial inequality in sub-Saharan Africa
We examine spatial and national inequality in Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries using comparable Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) data. Using living standard measures to calculate asset indices, we find that SSA has considerable within-country spatial and national contemporary asset inequalities, with large cross-country variations. We also use data from 27 SSA countries with comparable data from 1995 to 2018 to compare inequalities in acce…
The socioeconomic dimensions of racial inequality in South Africa: A social space perspective
It is well evidenced that South Africa is characterised by extreme socioeconomic inequality, which is strongly racialised. We offer an original sociological perspective, which departs from established perspectives considering the dynamics of vulnerability and poverty to focus on the structuring of classed and racialised privilege. We map how stocks of economic, cultural, and social capital intersect to generate systematic and structural inequalit…
Age, employment and labour force participation outcomes in Covid-era South Africa
In this paper we use data from waves 1–5 of NIDS-CRAM to investigate labour market outcomes in 2020/1 for four age groups: youth (aged 18–24), prime-age adults (aged 25–39), middle-age adults (aged 40–54) and older adults (aged 55–64). We contrast outcomes just before and just after the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown (February and April 2020) with outcomes one year later (March 2021), and study transitions between the periods. We fi…
Socioeconomic-Related Inequalities in Covid-19 Vulnerability in South Africa
Individuals' vulnerability to the risk of COVID-19 infection varies due to their health, socioeconomic, and living circumstances, which also affect the effectiveness of implementing non-pharmacological interventions (NPIs). In this study, we analysed socioeconomic-related inequalities in COVID-19 vulnerability using data from the nationally representative South African General Household Survey 2019. We developed a COVID-19 vulnerability index, wh…
Inequality in the Developing World
Inequality has emerged as a key development challenge. It holds implications for economic growth and redistribution and translates into power asymmetries that can endanger human rights, create conflict, and embed social exclusion and chronic poverty. For these reasons, it underpins intense public and academic debates and has become a dominant policy concern within many countries and in all multilateral agencies. It is at the core of the seventeen…
Piketty comes to South Africa
One of the most valuable features ofCapital and Ideologyis its concern to take history seriously and consider how the emergence of different political and economic regimes relate to discourses about fairness and justice across time. This paper pushes this agenda further by acknowledging that the experience of a few developed nations should not be taken as the template for the generalized study of inequality dynamics across time and space. In this…
Why Is Youth Unemployment So Intractable in South Africa? A Synthesis of Evidence at the Micro-Level
Locked down and locked out: Repurposing social assistance as emergency relief to informal workers
Snakes and ladders and loaded dice: Poverty dynamics and inequality in South Africa, 2008–2017
Longitudinal surveys can give insight into economic mobility, which allows us to understand how markers of (dis)advantage are consequential in determining material conditions in the present, and how these markers structure economic opportunity over time. In this paper we show that this dynamic element—the risk of falling into (deeper) poverty and the chances of moving up—looms large in the economic lives of both the poor and the non-poor in South…
The evolution and determination of earnings inequality in post-apartheid South Africa
In this paper we identify some of the drivers of changes in the distribution of earnings and earnings inequality in the South African labour market between 2000 and 2014. Although the overall level of earnings inequality between 2000 and 2011 was high and relatively stable, there were nonetheless some interesting shifts in the factors generating inequality. The earnings data from mid-2012 to 2014, however, show a steep increase in inequality. It …
Taking stock of South African income inequality
We synthesize the findings from several recent papers on South Africa’s very high income inequality. These papers use new datasets—including income tax data—and new empirical methods to investigate the drivers of household income and individual earnings inequality in South Africa. Increased returns to experience and an increased rate of return to tertiary qualifications are key drivers of a widening earnings distribution. Tax data merged with sur…
Drivers of inequality in South Africa
The first democratic elections in 1994 brought about the promise for equal opportunity and an overall improvement of living standards for the majority of the South African population. However, 20 years after the democratization of South Africa, levels of inequality remain stubbornly high. The focused contribution of this paper is to examine the role of income from different sources driving these high levels of inequality, and which ones cause cha…
A poverty dynamics approach to social stratification: The South African case
The wave of upbeat stories on the developing world's emerging middle class has reinvigorated a debate on how social class in general and the middle class in particular ought to be defined and measured. In the economics literature, most scholars agree that being middle class entails being free from poverty, which means being able to afford the basic things in life - not only today, but also tomorrow. In consequence, there is an increasing tendency…
Relative Economic Position and Subjective Well-Being in a Poor Society: Does Relative Position Indicator Matter
Urban Poverty and Inequality in Kenya
Schooling inequality, returns to schooling, and earnings inequality: Evidence from Brazil and South Africa
Human capital models imply that both the distribution of education and returns to education affect earnings inequality. Decomposition of these ‘quantity’ and ‘price’ components have been important in understanding changes in earnings inequality in developed and developing countries. This paper provides theoretical and empirical analysis of the interactions between schooling inequality, returns to schooling and earnings inequality. We focus on two…
Health Outcomes for Children Born to Teen Mothers in Cape Town, South Africa
This paper analyzes whether children born to teen mothers in Cape Town, South Africa are disadvantaged in terms of their health outcomes because their mother is a teen. Exploiting the longitudinal nature of the Cape Area Panel Study, we assess whether observable differences between teen mothers and slightly older mothers can explain why first-born children of teen mothers appear disadvantaged. Our balanced regressions indicate that observed chara…
Poverty, inequality, and prices in post-apartheid South Africa
Post-apartheid poverty and inequality trends have been the subject of intensive analysis, yet relatively little attention has been devoted to the impact of differential price movements on the measurement of poverty and inequality. This paper aims to tell the story of the evolution of both money-metric and non-money-metric poverty and inequality in post-apartheid South Africa, and to assess the effect of prices on this story. Our results show that…
Describing and decomposing post-apartheid income inequality in South Africa
This paper describes the changes in inequality in South Africa over the post-apartheid period, using income data from 1993 and 2008. Having shown that the data are comparable over time, it then profiles aggregate changes in income inequality, showing that inequality has increased over the post-apartheid period because an increased share of income has gone to the top decile. Social grants have become much more important as sources of income in the…
Labour Market Restructuring and South Africa's Rural Homeland Communitiesin the 1980s
Given South Africa's history, rural communities in the periphery have always been the poorest of the poor with a long-run dependence on migrant remittances. In the 1980s there were vigorous debates about the importance of agricultural activities yet these analyses assumed that the nature of the interaction between these rural communities and the broader structures of South Africa's economy remained tied to long-range, unskilled migrant labour. Wh…
Youth unemployment in South Africa: Challenges, concepts and opportunities
Minimum Wages and Household Poverty: General Equilibrium Macro–Micro Simulations for South Africa
Trends in South African income distribution and poverty since the fall of apartheid
A poverty dynamics approach to social stratification: The South African case
The wave of upbeat stories on the developing world's emerging middle class has reinvigorated a debate on how social class in general and the middle class in particular ought to be defined and measured. In the economics literature, most scholars agree that being middle class entails being free from poverty, which means being able to afford the basic things in life - not only today, but also tomorrow. In consequence, there is an increasing tendency…
Schooling as a lottery: Racial differences in school advancement in urban South Africa
Social assistance, gender, and the aged in South Africa
This paper reviews the history of the noncontributory social pension in South Africa, as well as recent work on the distributional and poverty-alleviating effects of this program. The pension has a strong gender dimension, reaching three times as many women as men, and has an unambiguous impact on reducing household poverty, particularly among Black South African households. The existing literature also suggests that the pension reaches unintende…
Locked down and locked out: Repurposing social assistance as emergency relief to informal workers
Relative Economic Position and Subjective Well-Being in a Poor Society: Does Relative Position Indicator Matter
Free education and social inequality in Ugandan primary schools: A step backward or a step in the right direction
Orphanhood and Schooling in South Africa: Trends in the Vulnerability of Orphans between 1993 and 2005
Using 10 nationally representative surveys conducted between 1993 and 2005 we assess the extent to which the vulnerability of orphans to poorer educational outcomes has changed over time as the AIDS crisis deepens in South Africa. In line with the existing literature we find that at every point in time orphans are at risk of poorer educational outcomes with maternal deaths generally having stronger negative effects than paternal deaths. However, …
The socioeconomic dimensions of racial inequality in South Africa: A social space perspective
It is well evidenced that South Africa is characterised by extreme socioeconomic inequality, which is strongly racialised. We offer an original sociological perspective, which departs from established perspectives considering the dynamics of vulnerability and poverty to focus on the structuring of classed and racialised privilege. We map how stocks of economic, cultural, and social capital intersect to generate systematic and structural inequalit…
Piketty comes to South Africa
One of the most valuable features ofCapital and Ideologyis its concern to take history seriously and consider how the emergence of different political and economic regimes relate to discourses about fairness and justice across time. This paper pushes this agenda further by acknowledging that the experience of a few developed nations should not be taken as the template for the generalized study of inequality dynamics across time and space. In this…
Minimum Wages and Household Poverty: General Equilibrium Macro–Micro Simulations for South Africa
Health Outcomes for Children Born to Teen Mothers in Cape Town, South Africa
This paper analyzes whether children born to teen mothers in Cape Town, South Africa are disadvantaged in terms of their health outcomes because their mother is a teen. Exploiting the longitudinal nature of the Cape Area Panel Study, we assess whether observable differences between teen mothers and slightly older mothers can explain why first-born children of teen mothers appear disadvantaged. Our balanced regressions indicate that observed chara…
Labour Market Restructuring and South Africa's Rural Homeland Communitiesin the 1980s
Given South Africa's history, rural communities in the periphery have always been the poorest of the poor with a long-run dependence on migrant remittances. In the 1980s there were vigorous debates about the importance of agricultural activities yet these analyses assumed that the nature of the interaction between these rural communities and the broader structures of South Africa's economy remained tied to long-range, unskilled migrant labour. Wh…
Youth unemployment in South Africa: Challenges, concepts and opportunities
Are African workers getting ahead in the new South Africa? Evidence from KwaZulu-Natal, 1993-1998
[Excerpt] In this paper, we use the KIDS panel data to answer three questions about the ?progress? of African workers in this one province in post-apartheid South Africa. First, how have African workers progressed as a group? Secondly, which African workers have progressed the most, and by how much have they progressed? Thirdly, to what extent is the progress made by workers driven by transitions between employment and unemployment, or between in…
Social assistance, gender, and the aged in South Africa
This paper reviews the history of the noncontributory social pension in South Africa, as well as recent work on the distributional and poverty-alleviating effects of this program. The pension has a strong gender dimension, reaching three times as many women as men, and has an unambiguous impact on reducing household poverty, particularly among Black South African households. The existing literature also suggests that the pension reaches unintende…
Trends in South African income distribution and poverty since the fall of apartheid
Free education and social inequality in Ugandan primary schools: A step backward or a step in the right direction
Schooling as a lottery: Racial differences in school advancement in urban South Africa
Orphanhood and Schooling in South Africa: Trends in the Vulnerability of Orphans between 1993 and 2005
Using 10 nationally representative surveys conducted between 1993 and 2005 we assess the extent to which the vulnerability of orphans to poorer educational outcomes has changed over time as the AIDS crisis deepens in South Africa. In line with the existing literature we find that at every point in time orphans are at risk of poorer educational outcomes with maternal deaths generally having stronger negative effects than paternal deaths. However, …
Labour Market Restructuring and South Africa's Rural Homeland Communitiesin the 1980s
Given South Africa's history, rural communities in the periphery have always been the poorest of the poor with a long-run dependence on migrant remittances. In the 1980s there were vigorous debates about the importance of agricultural activities yet these analyses assumed that the nature of the interaction between these rural communities and the broader structures of South Africa's economy remained tied to long-range, unskilled migrant labour. Wh…
Youth unemployment in South Africa: Challenges, concepts and opportunities
Minimum Wages and Household Poverty: General Equilibrium Macro–Micro Simulations for South Africa
Describing and decomposing post-apartheid income inequality in South Africa
This paper describes the changes in inequality in South Africa over the post-apartheid period, using income data from 1993 and 2008. Having shown that the data are comparable over time, it then profiles aggregate changes in income inequality, showing that inequality has increased over the post-apartheid period because an increased share of income has gone to the top decile. Social grants have become much more important as sources of income in the…
Poverty, inequality, and prices in post-apartheid South Africa
Post-apartheid poverty and inequality trends have been the subject of intensive analysis, yet relatively little attention has been devoted to the impact of differential price movements on the measurement of poverty and inequality. This paper aims to tell the story of the evolution of both money-metric and non-money-metric poverty and inequality in post-apartheid South Africa, and to assess the effect of prices on this story. Our results show that…
Schooling inequality, returns to schooling, and earnings inequality: Evidence from Brazil and South Africa
Human capital models imply that both the distribution of education and returns to education affect earnings inequality. Decomposition of these ‘quantity’ and ‘price’ components have been important in understanding changes in earnings inequality in developed and developing countries. This paper provides theoretical and empirical analysis of the interactions between schooling inequality, returns to schooling and earnings inequality. We focus on two…
Health Outcomes for Children Born to Teen Mothers in Cape Town, South Africa
This paper analyzes whether children born to teen mothers in Cape Town, South Africa are disadvantaged in terms of their health outcomes because their mother is a teen. Exploiting the longitudinal nature of the Cape Area Panel Study, we assess whether observable differences between teen mothers and slightly older mothers can explain why first-born children of teen mothers appear disadvantaged. Our balanced regressions indicate that observed chara…
Urban Poverty and Inequality in Kenya
The evolution and determination of earnings inequality in post-apartheid South Africa
In this paper we identify some of the drivers of changes in the distribution of earnings and earnings inequality in the South African labour market between 2000 and 2014. Although the overall level of earnings inequality between 2000 and 2011 was high and relatively stable, there were nonetheless some interesting shifts in the factors generating inequality. The earnings data from mid-2012 to 2014, however, show a steep increase in inequality. It …
Taking stock of South African income inequality
We synthesize the findings from several recent papers on South Africa’s very high income inequality. These papers use new datasets—including income tax data—and new empirical methods to investigate the drivers of household income and individual earnings inequality in South Africa. Increased returns to experience and an increased rate of return to tertiary qualifications are key drivers of a widening earnings distribution. Tax data merged with sur…
Drivers of inequality in South Africa
The first democratic elections in 1994 brought about the promise for equal opportunity and an overall improvement of living standards for the majority of the South African population. However, 20 years after the democratization of South Africa, levels of inequality remain stubbornly high. The focused contribution of this paper is to examine the role of income from different sources driving these high levels of inequality, and which ones cause cha…
A poverty dynamics approach to social stratification: The South African case
The wave of upbeat stories on the developing world's emerging middle class has reinvigorated a debate on how social class in general and the middle class in particular ought to be defined and measured. In the economics literature, most scholars agree that being middle class entails being free from poverty, which means being able to afford the basic things in life - not only today, but also tomorrow. In consequence, there is an increasing tendency…
Relative Economic Position and Subjective Well-Being in a Poor Society: Does Relative Position Indicator Matter
Snakes and ladders and loaded dice: Poverty dynamics and inequality in South Africa, 2008–2017
Longitudinal surveys can give insight into economic mobility, which allows us to understand how markers of (dis)advantage are consequential in determining material conditions in the present, and how these markers structure economic opportunity over time. In this paper we show that this dynamic element—the risk of falling into (deeper) poverty and the chances of moving up—looms large in the economic lives of both the poor and the non-poor in South…
Why Is Youth Unemployment So Intractable in South Africa? A Synthesis of Evidence at the Micro-Level
Locked down and locked out: Repurposing social assistance as emergency relief to informal workers
Inequality in the Developing World
Inequality has emerged as a key development challenge. It holds implications for economic growth and redistribution and translates into power asymmetries that can endanger human rights, create conflict, and embed social exclusion and chronic poverty. For these reasons, it underpins intense public and academic debates and has become a dominant policy concern within many countries and in all multilateral agencies. It is at the core of the seventeen…
Piketty comes to South Africa
One of the most valuable features ofCapital and Ideologyis its concern to take history seriously and consider how the emergence of different political and economic regimes relate to discourses about fairness and justice across time. This paper pushes this agenda further by acknowledging that the experience of a few developed nations should not be taken as the template for the generalized study of inequality dynamics across time and space. In this…
Age, employment and labour force participation outcomes in Covid-era South Africa
In this paper we use data from waves 1–5 of NIDS-CRAM to investigate labour market outcomes in 2020/1 for four age groups: youth (aged 18–24), prime-age adults (aged 25–39), middle-age adults (aged 40–54) and older adults (aged 55–64). We contrast outcomes just before and just after the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown (February and April 2020) with outcomes one year later (March 2021), and study transitions between the periods. We fi…
Economics (25 works) · Economic growth (19 works) · Income, Poverty, and Inequality (18 works) · Inequality (17 works) · Political science (16 works) · Sociology (16 works) · Geography (15 works) · Poverty, Education, and Child Welfare (15 works) · Development economics (13 works) · Demographic economics (12 works)