Search results

South Africa is in the last stage of the first demographic transition (FDT) – yet already depicts aspects of the second transition. The last stage of the FDT is characterized by lower levels of fertility closer to or at the replacement level of the average of 2.1 children per woman, and improvements in mortality displayed by declining infant and childhood mortality leading to increasing life expectancy at birth. The second demographic transition (SDT) is driven by lifestyle changes that are determinants of demographic patterns. Such lifestyle changes are declining marriage rates, increasing attention on human development, and thus changing family formation patterns. South Africa’s youth are at the centre of this transition. The population census of 2011 shows an age structure of South Africa that is characterized by a larger proportion of 20-35-year-olds. This resulted from a long period of declining fertility and to some extent improvements in mortality at all ages. This age structure, with adequate investments - is expected to yield a period of economic growth resulting from a reduced dependency ratio. However, improved health care, investments in human development, and higher employment opportunities are required to harness the benefit. This chapter aims to explore the national and provincial preparedness of South African youth to contribute to economic growth of the country. In particular, the chapter will focus on demographic factors such as sex ratio; youth mortality and morbidity; and youth fertility levels as these factors are highly correlated with human development.

The popular press often touts workforce demographic diversity as profit enhancing because it may reduce the firm's communication costs with particular segments of customers or yield greater team problem-solving abilities. On the other hand, diversity also may raise communication costs within teams, thereby retarding problem solving and lowering productivity. Unfortunately, there is little empirical research that disentangles the above countervailing effects. Diversity in ability enhances the team productivity if there is significant mutual learning and collaboration within the team, while demographic diversity may harm productivity by making learning and peer pressure less effective and increasing team-member turnover. We evaluate these propositions using a novel panel data from a garment plant that shifted from individual piece rate to group piece rate production over three years. Because we observe individual productivity data, we are able to econometrically distinguish between the impacts of diversity in worker abilities and demographic diversity. Teams with more heterogeneous worker abilities are more productive at the plant. Holding the distribution of team ability constant, teams composed of only one ethnicity (Hispanic workers in our case) are more productive, but this finding does not hold for marginal changes in team composition. We find little evidence that workers prefer to be segregated; demographically diverse teams are no more likely to dissolve, holding team productivity (and hence pay) constant, than homogeneous teams.

Latin America experienced a long period of sustained growth since 2003 that positively impacted social and labor market indicators, including poverty. This paper contributes to the understanding of this process as it carries out a comparative study of poverty and indigence dynamics in five Latin American countries during 2003–2012. Specifically, it extends the analysis of a previously published study by broadening the time coverage and examining indigence mobility. It analyzes the extent to which countries with different levels of poverty (extreme poverty) incidence diverge in terms of exit and entry rates, and identifies the relative importance of the frequency and impact of events associated with poverty transitions. For this, a dynamic analysis of panel data is carried out using regular household surveys. Sizeable rates of poverty and indigence movements were observed in all five countries and it was found that a large proportion of poor or indigent households experienced positive events, mainly related to the labor market; however, only a small fraction of them actually exited poverty and indigence. It appeared, therefore, that even when the economy behaved reasonably well, high levels of labor turnover and income mobility (even of a negative nature) still prevail, mainly associated with the high level of precariousness and the undeveloped system of social protection that characterize the studied countries.

The recession the US economy entered in December of 2007 is considered to be the most severe downturn the country has experienced since the Great Depression. The unemployment rate reached as high as 10.1% in October 2009 – the highest we have seen since the 1982 recession. In this chapter, we examine the severity of this recession compared to those in the past by examining worker flows into and out of unemployment taking into account changes in the demographic structure of the population. We identify the most vulnerable groups of this recession by dissagregating the workforce by age, gender, and race. We find that adjusting for the aging of the US labor force increases the severity of this recession. Our results indicate that the increase in the unemployment rate is driven to a larger extent by the lack of hiring (low outflows), but flows into unemployment are still important for understanding unemployment rate dynamics (they are not as acyclical as some literature suggests) and differences in unemployment rates across demographic groups. We find that this is indeed a “mancession,” as men face higher job separation probabilities, lower job finding probabilities, and, as a result, higher unemployment rates than women. Lastly, there is some evidence that blacks suffered more than whites (again, this difference is particularly pronounced for men).

Two major trends – demographic shifts in the working-age population, and the proliferation of web technologies – are having a profound and generally unrecognized effect on the nature and characteristics of work, and on opportunities for the mature workforce. Key features of the workplace point to seven broad work trends. These trends have significant implications for organizations and for older workers. Six interdependent organizational changes are central to the far-reaching effects on enterprises and operating approaches. These changing work characteristics require certain essential behaviors for mature workers to be successful in the contemporary work environment. Such a dynamic workplace provides opportunity to introduce new thinking and propose new models. Realigning organizational and workforce interests calls for developing solutions beyond the individual level, reorienting enterprise capabilities, and reframing of the organization development practitioner role as work ecosystem advisor. High-leverage strategies and systemic interventions, such as multiconstituent initiatives and action research, can be used to influence constructively the multifaceted world of work.