Cities are at the centre of South Africa’s wage inequalities

Transformation of the South African labour market is imperative for building a more equitable and prosperous future. The ‘triple challenge’ of inequality, poverty, and unemployment all have their roots in a slack domestic labour market.1 Yet, to date, the majority of scholarly work on labour market outcomes in South Africa has focused on micro supply-side issues, or, in other words, on the barriers that exist in the lives of workers, particularly among the youth.2 Demand-side macro factors, by contrast, such as the impact of technological change, globalisation, and urbanisation, have been largely neglected.