The structure of township economy & development : the relationship between informal sector work and precarity in South African townships

Abstract

In South Africa there is a large number of unemployed people, which in no small part is due to the formal sector’s incapability to create more job opportunities. People are vulnerable to poverty, and as a result, the informal sector has become important to poor and unemployed working-class households in the country’s townships. Informal work offers employment and a source of income to shield these communities from extreme poverty. However, at the same time, work and income in the informal sector is extremely precarious. As this study shows, the informal sector exists alongside with precarity in South Africa. The research is based on data collection in the townships of Mamelodi and Diepsloot. A qualitative approach was deployed in the collection of data, and 20 participants were selected to be interviewed in order to address the research questions of this study, it included informal sector workers like street vendors, welders and carpenters from both townships. This study examines and explores the informal sector through the lens of structuralist theories of informal sector work, supplemented with theories of precarious work and precarity. What emerges from the analysis of the data and findings, is that the informal sector is characterised by an ambiguous duality: the informal sector is an important arena for poor people’s survival strategies, but at the same time, informal sector work is deeply precarious. I also show how the informal sector and informal sector work is related to the formal sector, labour restructuring, and the neo-liberal policies introduced in the South African economy in the post-apartheid era, which have caused escalating unemployment.