On 20 October 2022, Just Share hosted a symposium featuring a panel of leading experts to discuss inequality and the role of the South African corporate sector.
In the context of our inequality, diversity and transformation work, Just Share has spent hundreds of hours engaging with the exhaustive research on and analysis of inequality in the world’s most unequal country.
We have become increasingly concerned at the gulf that exists between what the evidence says about poverty and inequality, and the positions taken by SA’s leading business organisations when it comes to crucial socio-economic challenges.
At the symposium, we brought together some of the country’s leading poverty and inequality researchers and activists for an in-depth conversation about what the data reveals, and why misconceptions about the drivers of inequality form the basis of so many corporate positions on disclosure and policy-making.
Topics discussed included:
- What is the relationship between labour market inequality and overall inequality in SA?
- Why does corporate SA resist wage gap disclosure and the implementation of a universal basic income grant?
- How do gender wage gaps, women’s economic empowerment and gender-based violence intersect?
- Are SA’s extraordinarily high executive remuneration packages necessary for skills retention?
Watch the video highlighting key messages from the discussion.
Our panellists:
- Rachel Bukasa, Executive Director, Black Sash
- Neil Coleman, Co-Founder and Senior Policy Specialist, Institute for Economic Justice
- Isobel Frye, Executive Director, Social Policy Institute (SPI)
- Murray Leibbrandt, Director, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit (SALDRU), University of Cape Town (UCT)
- Dr Neva Makgetla, Senior Economist, Trade & Industrial Policy Strategies (TIPS)
- Masana Mulaudzi, Programmes Director, Sonke Gender Justice
- Tracey Davies, Executive Director, Just Share (facilitator)
