Unveiling the success of the minimum wage legislation implementation in South Africa and United Kingdom: Integrative systematic review

The study investigates the success level of national minimum wage legislation as a redistributive resource tool. While there are very limited studies conducted from developing countries, they yield equally mixed results. The study sought to explore the challenges that hinder the execution of the legislation and synthesizes lessons from the implementation of minimum wage policies in South Africa and United Kingdom which could lead towards corrective measures for the future. To critique the literature review and guide data collection, the methodological review framework of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) was utilized. Using an integrative systematic review over the period spanning from 2003 to 2023, our findings revealed that while UK experiences high success levels in the implementation of the legislation, South Africa battles to fully execute the legislation predominantly due to some high unemployment levels. Although South Africa has made great strides in implementing the National Minimum Wage, efforts have also been jeopardized by inflation and casualisation of work by employers. For this reason, organisations in South Africa are still faced with high levels of noncompliance, social injustice, inequality and poverty. In addition, success in the execution of the legislation is seen to large organization and usually snubbed by smalls businesses. The study unpacks challenges that hamper successes in execution of the legislation which incorporates inflation, high unemployment rates and nature of work. This study fulfils a critical need to investigate a fragmented theoretical subject of minimum wage by comparing the developed and developing country.