10 CHAPTER 1


Second, we analyze household behavior related to human capital invest- ment. In this area, we focus on dynamic human capital production, from early- childhood nutrition intake to schooling investments and attainment, and on adolescents’ transition to the labor market. Even at this stage of the analy- sis, it is important to integrate institutional factors and observed household behavior to achieve a comprehensive understanding.


In South Africa, access to quality education is still highly unequal across population groups and locations, although the situation has been changing. In the transition from apartheid to a democratic education system, two milestones stand out: the 1996 South African School Act and the 1998 Norms and Standards for School Funding. These two sets of rules provided basic guidelines to departments of education at the national and provincial levels. More recently, South Africa introduced a revised set of Norms and Standards to promote more progressive fiscal interventions in the school system. As described in Part 1, however, there still remain discrepancies in access to quality education across population groups and communities (where population groups remain locally clustered). To understand institutional con- straints, the two key dimensions are introduced.


The first dimension is population groups. Historically there have been four politically defined population groups in the country: white, colored, Indian/ Asian, and African. The majority of the population is African. Under apartheid, Africans had semiautonomous homelands where they governed and received almost no support from the white central government. Public schools were also governed by different education ministries that were separated by popu- lation group and homeland. It has been important to investigate the conver- gence in access to quality education across population groups. The second dimension is location. Since population groups were segre- gated in residential locations under apartheid, their schools were also segregated by location. For example, African schools were located in pre- dominantly African communities. Therefore access to quality education has a spatial dimension. Since commuting long distances to school is not possible for many children owing to the substantial financial and time costs involved, accessibility to good schools depends on their spatial distribution (and on changes to that distribution, given past conditions).


In Part 2 findings on household behavior using micro panel data are reported. In particular, this part examines the dynamic nature of human capital investments and formation, from early-childhood growth (nutrition intake), to schooling investments, to adolescents’ transition to the labor mar- ket. Chapter 4 focuses on dynamic human capital production in which early- stage investment can have long-term implications for schooling outcomes (and therefore potentially labor market outcomes).


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117  |  Page 118  |  Page 119  |  Page 120  |  Page 121  |  Page 122  |  Page 123  |  Page 124  |  Page 125  |  Page 126  |  Page 127  |  Page 128  |  Page 129  |  Page 130  |  Page 131  |  Page 132  |  Page 133  |  Page 134  |  Page 135  |  Page 136  |  Page 137  |  Page 138  |  Page 139  |  Page 140  |  Page 141  |  Page 142  |  Page 143  |  Page 144  |  Page 145  |  Page 146  |  Page 147  |  Page 148  |  Page 149  |  Page 150