The Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER) at Rhodes University invites you to the first in a series of webinars exploring vital research on socio-economic issues.
This Women's Month, we discuss how the first wave of the NiDS-CRAM survey data indicates that current Covid-19 disaster interventions need to be significantly scaled-up and far better targeted at protecting the more vulnerable informal sector workers, particularly women, who are currently bearing the greatest costs of the pandemic.
The Covid-19 crisis and the South African informal economy
‘Locked out’ of livelihoods and employment
DATE: Thurs, 20 August 2020
TIME: 14h15
Presenter: Prof. Mike Rogan
Associate Professor in the Department of Economics and Economic History at Rhodes University
Respondent: Prof. Naledi Nomalanga Mkhize
Head of Department in the Department of History at the Nelson Mandela University
Chair: Prof. Nhlanhla Cyril Mbatha
Director: Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER) at Rhodes University
Summary
The measures to curb the spread of COVID-19 have impacted negatively on informal workers, whose jobs are precarious, who often depend on daily earnings for survival, and who lack legal and social protections.These impacts have been experienced unevenly by different groups of workers within the informal economy.
This paper analyses the first wave of the NiDS-CRAM survey in order to identify how the effects of the COVID-19 crisis differ within the informal economy and, in particular by gender and type of employment. In many contexts, the current moment has been described as a ‘triple crisis’ consisting of a health, economic and care crisis that impacts on women more than men.