EUSEBIUS MCKAISER | Unemployment entrenches racism and patriarchy, but it doesn't stop there

While everyone is affected by the sorry state of our nation, it is simply not the case that we are equally affected. Data from the Quarterly Labour Force Survey for the first quarter of 2023, for example, provide excellent insights into the gendered and racialised features of unemployment. This is despite the insistence in some online echo chambers, habituated by the children of hegemony, that South Africa is a difficult place to live in if you are white and male. In fact, the least worse off are white South Africans, still; and white men, especially, do not, as a group, know what it is like to truly struggle to enter the labour market. 

Even on the expanded definition of unemployment (which counts workers who have given up on looking for work as part of the overall unemployment tally), white men are the only group (if we focus on race and gender) that enjoys single-digit unemployment: 6.7% of white men are unemployed. The next lowest number is for white women at 12.5% on the expanded definition. In many countries, these numbers would constitute a governance crisis. It is also important to acknowledge that behind these percentages are real human beings, families and communities who experience the material consequences and meaning of unemployment. There is no joy for those white families just because the category “white male” or “white female” is relatively better off than other demographic groupings. 

However, within the South African context, it is simply dishonest to not look in detail at how much worse off black Africans in general, and black African women in particular, are. Unemployment isn’t gender-neutral nor is it colour blind. To silence these realities is to wilfully and wrongly refuse to understand, and come to grips with, the full nature and structure of the unemployment problem in South Africa. Among black African male South Africans, 43.9% are unemployed, and  the number is 51% for black African females.

Given the cost of living crisis, with inflation above the 3-6% inflation target, the direct implication of these facts is that millions of black South Africans are existing precariously in democratic South Africa. This is worsened by a state that constantly and viciously asks South Africans to be resilient and hopeful, as if these tired old linguistic tropes from the early 90s can fill an empty stomach in 2023 or provide cover and respite from the harsh winter that is worsened by brutal power cuts. South Africa is a tough place to be in right now, but it is particularly harsh for black women, who are the worst off economically. 

Not only is South Africa not a friendly place for black women, it is also unkind to the youth. It is simply immoral that about 3.7-million young people aged 15-24 (out of 10.2-million) are not in education, employment or training. It is literally a waste of human resources, an inefficient and ineffective way to (not) respond to the youth bulge that African countries often punt as an on-paper economic advantage. But if young people are sitting idle, and their energies aren't harnessed, then you cannot meaningfully refer to this youth bulge as an economic advantage. 

Given the cost of living crisis, with inflation above the 3-6% inflation target, the direct implication of these facts is that millions of black South Africans are existing precariously in democratic South Africa

Worse than that is the additional and very real danger that our democracy becomes vulnerable to the expressions of deep social and democratic discontent from millions of young people feeling justifiably abandoned by the state and all other sources of power about them.

No-one says the South African economy will expand by more than 1% this year and it may well not grow at all. Add to this the negative incentive to invest in our country due to power cuts that are worsening with no clear, transparent, feasible, government plan on the table to arrest the crisis, and it is hard to be optimistic about the short term or even the medium term. We have not even properly explored here all of the social crises that are spawned by this economic data, such as gratuitous violence, decreased participation in democratic processes, cynicism about how trustworthy the state and various democratic and state institutions are, and so on. 

All this, by the way, besides extreme poverty increasing in South Africa and millions going hungry every day. Little wonder our children also struggle to read for meaning. Which grade 4 child can concentrate in poorly resourced classes within abandoned communities if they do not even have a nutritious meal guaranteed every day?

Some will respond to these facts with an understandable yearning for solutions and ask, “So what we should we do Eusebius? Tell us.” I do not have answers in my back pocket. It is our collective problem to solve. What I do know is that way too many South Africans struggle to ditch the myth of South African exceptionalism. They are uncomfortable with a picture of the country as being as susceptible, if we are not careful, to the kinds of anti-democratic backsliding that we have seen in geographies like Central America.

We are not immune to a worsening scenario. That means we cannot afford to be angry when confronted with the core facts. We can only hope to find solutions if we agree broadly that there is a deep and serious crisis in our democracy. Don't let eternal optimists like Discovery's Adrian Gore make you feel bad for keeping it real. Only the very wealthy can afford mythmaking. 

It is also important to recognise a nexus fact when analysing the state of the nation as it is now. That is, the ANC government has sponsored the lion's share of our postapartheid crises. What will you do with that fact, as a voter?