Education and Labour Market Inequalities in South Africa

Framed within notions of social justice, inequality of opportunity and Bourdieu’s forms of capital, this chapter examines the gaps in educational and labour market outcomes in South Africa and how they have changed over time. With social policies aimed at redressing inequalities introduced from 1994, we track the changes in school mathematics achievements from 2003 to 2015; university graduation rates for science, engineering and health related (SET) fields from 2008 to 2017 and demographic shifts of workers in high-skill occupations from 2008 to 2018.