Globalisation increases vulnerability

The impact of increased globalisation in South Africa has compounded existing inequalities, according to a report by the government’s National Population Unit.

Titled ‘The State of South Africa’s Population’, the report was launched in Pretoria on Friday by the department of social development. It argues that the categories of people at risk increases as globalisation facilitates a shift from state control of the economy to free markets.
According to the report, the official unemployment rate in South Africa increased from 16.9 percent in 1995 to 20.1 percent in 1996, and again to 22.9 percent in 1997, with the unemployment burden falling heaviest on black South Africans.

“Between 1994 and 1997, the manufacturing industry lost 94,900 jobs, while from 1997 to 1998, the textile industry alone shed an estimated 20,000 jobs,” said the report. It added that temporary increases in interest rates resulting from Reserve Bank attempts to protect the value of the country’s currency, the Rand, put severe pressure on the building and construction industries, which shed 51,400 jobs from 1994 to 1997. “The total loss of jobs in the formal non-agricultural sector from 1994 to 1999 amounted to 500,000,” said the report.

It noted that social exclusion and vulnerability in South Africa follow gender and racial lines. The report said gender and race remain important factors that determine the level of formal employment, pointing out that 24 percent of African males and nearly 49 percent of African women work in jobs classified as elementary. “Half of all the white men and women employed work in jobs classified as managerial, professional or technical,” the report said, adding that only 7 percent of white men and 3.6 percent of white women hold elementary jobs.

Eddie Webster of Wits University’s sociology department, a co-author of the report, said at the launch that globalisation in poor countries, including South Africa, has elevated governments’ finance and economic departments to the exclusion of what he called “social delivery” organs of governments. “National policies tend to be informed by the needs of the markets as opposed to addressing social inequalities,” Webster said.

He argued that there is an alternative to how governments of poor countries can address the implications of globalisation rather than to give up and say there is no other way. “Coordinated policy formulation and implementation between different government departments, the private sector and civil society are crucial components of shaping the nature of globalisation so that it does not commit national economies to negative effects, especially on the vulnerable,” Webster added.