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Race and gender in local government employmentDebbie Budlender aa Deputy Director, Central Statistical ServicePublished online: 27 Feb 2008.

To cite this article: Debbie Budlender (1998) Race and gender in local government employment, Development Southern Africa,15:4, 679-687, DOI: 10.1080/03768359808440039

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Development Southern Africa Vol 15, No 4, Summer 1998

Race and gender in local governmentemployment

Debbie Budlender1

Since the democratic elections of 1994, there have been significant shifts in the race andgender composition of the national and provincial spheres of the public service. Lessattention has been focused on what has happened in local government employment. Thisarticle examines the results of a large sample survey of local governments conducted bythe Central Statistical Service in December 1997. The analysis suggests that there aresevere imbalances in respect of representivity in this third sphere of government.

1. INTRODUCTION

The White Paper on the Transformation of the Public Service has, as one of itsprimary objectives, the creation of a 'genuinely representative public servicewhich reflects the major characteristics of South African demography'. Since thedemocratic elections of 1994, there have been significant shifts in the race andgender composition of the national and provincial spheres of the public service.

In the local government elections of 1995 and 1996, 18 per cent of those electedto primary local government seats were women. The importance of adequategender balance among local government representatives has been widely ac-knowledged, including in the Local Government White Paper of early 1998. Todate, however, very little attention has been focused on the composition of localgovernment employment.

There are more than 800 local governments in South Africa, of which more than600 employ staff. The Central Statistical Service (CSS) has for many years con-ducted a quarterly survey of employment, salary and wages in the public sector.This survey includes local authorities. For other parts of the public sector, theCSS conducts a census which entails sending questionnaires to every single em-ploying entity. In the case of local government, the CSS sends questionnaires toonly a sample and then estimates total employment from their returns.

During 1997, the CSS introduced a new format for its quarterly survey of thepublic sector. This expanded on the previous one to allow for detailed populationgroup and gender breakdowns. The data was collated from forms submitted bythe various local governments. In some cases the information on these forms wasnot complete. In other cases the totals and components making up those totals

1 Deputy Director, Central Statistical Service. The author wishes to acknowledge assis-tance from Estelle de Jager and Jairo Arrow. This article was earlier on the CSS website.

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Race and gender in local government employment

did not agree and it was not possible to reconcile. These anomalies account forthe figures in the different tables not matching exactly.

2. EMPLOYMENT PATTERNS BY POPULATION GROUP, GENDERAND SALARY BRACKET .

Of the more than 300 local governments surveyed in December 1997, 126 at-tempted to complete the new questionnaires and 94 were able to provide the fulldata for Table 1, which required a breakdown of permanent workers by popula-tion group, gender and salary brackets.

Those who completed the questionnaire ranged in size from the small local gov-ernment of Eksteenskuil, employing only two people, to large ones such as Bloem-fontein and Pietermaritzburg, each employing well over 3 000 people. Togetherthe 94 local governments employed 33 629 employees. The CSS's estimate oftotal local government employment is slightly under 240 000.

Table 1: Local government employment by population group and gender,December 1997

Women

MenTotal

' African

n3 991

17 532

21523

%

125264

Coloured

n538

2 246

2 784

%278

11

Indian

n

257113370

%134

White

n2 939

4 992

7 931

%9

1524

Total

n7 725

25 883

33 608

%

2377

100

Table 1 gives the overall population group and gender breakdown of the work-force in terms of actual numbers (n) and percentages (%). Figure 1 records theactual numbers. Over three-quarters (77 per cent) of the employees are men. Thisshould be compared with the situation at the combined national and provinciallevel, where the number of women and men is more or less equal. Nearly two-thirds of local government employees are African and close on a quarter (23 percent) are white.

More men than women of each population group are employed by local govern-ment. The imbalance is starkest for Africans, while white employment is themost balanced in gender terms. White women account for 38 per cent of allwomen employees, and white men for 19 per cent of men employees. Con-versely, African women make up just over half (52 per cent) of the femaleworkforce, while African men account for over two-thirds (68 per cent) of themale workforce.

The survey questionnaire asked local governments to provide information on thedistribution of employees across different earning levels. Table 2a shows em-ployees clustering in the two earnings categories between R10 000 and R49 999per annum. The table records absolute figures (n), as well as percentages (%).

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. Race and gender in local government employment

Only 2 per cent of all employees earn less than R10 000 per annum. The over-whelming majority of African (94 per cent) and coloured (87 per cent) employ-ees fall into the next two lowest categories, compared with 66 per cent of Indianand only 39 per cent of white employees. Conversely, 9 per cent of white em-ployees earn more than R100 000 per annum, compared with 2 per cent or less inevery other population group.

Figure 2 shows the distribution across earnings categories of women and men ineach population group; the absolute figures are provided in Table 2b. Overall,women are more likely than men to be in higher earnings categories. Almost aquarter (24 per cent) of all women employees earn R50 000 per annum or more,compared with 18 per cent of men employees. This pattern is sustained across allpopulation groups except for Indians, where 22 per cent of the Indian women,but 31 per cent of the Indian men, earn R50 000 or more. However, Indian em-ployees account for only 4 per cent of the total.

Table 3 shows that, among African employees, the lowest earners include morewomen than men: 55 per cent of African women, compared with 49 per cent ofAfrican men, earn under R20 000 per annum. This apparent anomaly is ex-plained by the clustering of 47 per cent of all African men employees in theR20 000-R49 000 earnings category, while this category accounts for only 32per cent of African women.

Overall, white men account for three-quarters of all those earning R150 000 perannum or more, and less than a quarter of those earning below R10 000. Mean-while, women of all population groups, except the coloured group, are overrepre-sented in the lowest earning category of R9 999 per annum or less.

3. EMPLOYMENT PATTERNS BY POPULATION GROUP, GENDERAND EMPLOYMENT LEVEL

A similar number (91) of municipalities completed the last columns of Table 4 ofthe questionnaire. This provided for a gender breakdown of 30 245 permanentfull-time employees by employment level. Four-fifths (80 per cent) of the em-ployees are men - a fairly similar percentage to that of the slightly different se-lection of municipalities who completed Table 1.

Table 4 - with absolute figures above and percentages below - shows thatwomen are underrepresented at the management level and among labourers, inwhich categories they account for only one in every ten (10 per cent) employees.They are underrepresented - but less starkly so - at 14 per cent among artisanworkers and apprentices. They are significantly overrepresented among clericalworkers, where they account for 43 per cent of the total, and in the professional,semi-professional and technical category where they account for close on a third(32 per cent).

Table 5 shows the breakdown of each gender. It reveals that close on half (46 percent) of all women hold clerical positions, a further quarter (25 per cent) hold

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2 Table 2a: Local government earnings by population group, December 1997

<=R9999<=R19999<=R49999<=R99999«*R149999R150000+Total

n

2581048495841108

7512

21521

African%

14945500

100

D

4511431274

300166

2 784

Coloured%

2414611

10

100

n

52102807381274

1373

Indian%

47

5928

20

100

n

250232

2 8643 840

635112

7933

White%

33

3648

81

100

Totaln

60511961145305629

753134

33 614

%

236431720

100

Table 2b: Local government earnings by race and gender, December 1997

<=R9999<»R19999««R49999<-R99999<-R149999R150000+Total

W

1032 0591290

518213

3994

AfricanM

1558 4278 264

583539

17491

Coloured

w.9

161277

8821

538

M

36982997218

145

2 252

W

217

1705323

256

IndianM

2895

63732825

. 11114

w109104

15561102

5911

2 941

WhiteM

141136

13102 726

575103

4 991

W

24223313 2931761

8418

7 729

TotalM

3609 640

112083 855

667118

25 848

Note: W « Women; M - Men.

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Table 3: Local government earnings by population group and gender, December 1997

<=R9999<=R19 999<=R49999

o=R99999<=R149 999R150000+Total

African (V.)W

352321310

100

M

14847

300

100

Coloured (V.)

W

23051

1600

100

M2

4444

1010

100

Indian (%)

83

66

2111

100

M39

572920

100

White (%)W

44

533720

100

M33

2655122

100

Total (•/.)W

32943

2310

100

M

136441530

100

Note: W= Women; M - Men.

Table 4: Local government employment levels by gender, December 1997

Gender Management Professional Clerical Artisan Labourer Other

Women%Men%Total

6910

638

90707100

Total

94532

2 00868

2953100

2 86243

3 75457

6 616100

29714

1802

862099

100

151610

13 59590

15111100

47918

220582

2 684100

616820

24 00280

30 170100

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00 Figure 3: Local government employment by level and gender, December 1997

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Race and gender in local government employment

Table 5: Local government employment by gender and employment level,December 1997 (%)

Gender

Women

MenTotal

Manage-

ment

132

Profes-

sional

15810

Clerical

461622

Artisan

577

Labourer

255650

Other

899

Total

100100100

labourer positions, while 15 per cent are professionals. Only one in a hundred (1per cent) holds a management position. Among men, the dominant group is la-bourers, being over half (56 per cent) of all men employees. The next biggestcategory is clerical workers, which accounts for only one in six (16 per cent) ofall men employees. Three in every hundred (3 per cent) are managers. It is thesediffering gender profiles which explain the earnings clustering shown in theearnings tables above. Overall, looking at both women and men, half (50 percent) of all employees in these 91 municipalities are labourers and 2 per cent aremanagers.

4. CONCLUSION

The data collected by the CSS in December 1997 does not cover all local gov-ernments. It is difficult to know what biases the sample of respondents contains,and how the full picture differs from that presented in this article. From the in-formation available, however, it appears that there are severe population groupand gender imbalances in local government employment.

REFERENCESCENTRAL STATISTICAL SERVICE (CSS), 1997. Survey of local govern-ments, December. Pretoria: CSS.

Submitted August 1998; accepted for publication September 1998.

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