Only 56% of 18-year-old African matriculants believe they have a good chance of landing a job within three years, as compared to 85% of their white and 78% of their coloured counterparts, according to a survey of Cape Town youth.
The survey of youngsters aged 14 to 22 also found that 22% of white 15-year-old boys worked in part-time jobs while at school, while only 1% of African male learners did.
”These opportunities are not available to kids in Joe Slovo schools,” said Jeremy Seekings, of the Centre for Social Science Research at the University of Cape Town.
The study, conducted by the centre in conjunction with the University of Michigan, started tracking about 4 800 youths in 2002 to gauge their opportunities and challenges in democratic South Africa. Research on school, labour market, sexuality and household environments will continue until 2008.
”We can see aspects of the South African dream, where it’s happening and where not, because we can see which people are getting ahead,” explained David Lam, visiting professor of economics from the University of Michigan.
Access to the right social networks appears to be one reason for the disparity in work opportunities. Two-thirds of working young adults found jobs through friends (34%) or family (32%), and only 7% by responding to an advert or directly contacting an employer (20%).
Said Seekings: ”It changes the way we think about unemployment. It’s not necessarily a resource issue … You may need an employed friend or family member to find information [for employment].”
With an average of 4,2 people per Cape Town household, the vast majority of African homes are poor, but coloured households range from desperately impoverished to well-off. More than three-quarters of white homes are in the top bracket.
Seekings comments that ”disadvantages at the worst end of Cape Town society appear to reinforce each other”. Youths from well-off households continued to have more opportunities.
The study shows that African teenagers start struggling at school — by the age of 14, white and coloured learners are a full grade ahead of their African counterparts. White learners on average complete 12 grades of schooling by 19 and coloured learners finish 10 grades by the same age. African learners reach this level three years later.
Lam said that while South Africa had the highest school enrolment rates on the continent, the high rate of grade repetition put pressure on class size and resources.
But girl learners do not appear to be disadvantaged. ”Girls do better than boys right from the beginning, and by the age of 16 or 17 are usually a full grade ahead of boys the same age,” he says. Thirty-nine percent of girls finished at least grade 10 by the age of 16, compared to 31% of boys.
Not so corrupt
Despite scandals such as Travelgate, most South Africans believe the government is less corrupt than it was a decade ago, reveals an Afrobarometer survey released on Thursday.
Only a quarter of South Africans say MPs are involved in corruption, down from 50% in 2000. While half of South Africans in 1997 believed all or most government officials were corrupt, this has dropped to 21%.
But opinions about the police remain jaundiced: 36% of South Africans feel all or most police officials are corrupt, while only 48% believe police readily give assistance to citizens, according to the survey A Decade of Democracy, conducted in late 2004.
One in 10 respondents said they had had to ”pay a bribe, give a gift or do a favour” to avoid a problem with police, while 9% had done this to obtain water or electricity and 11% to secure a document.
Forty-one percent of South Africans say the government is doing a good job in reducing crime — well below the 68% recorded for delivering water, 58% for managing the economy well and 56% for improving basic health services.
Crime and HIV/Aids, after unemployment, are the most pressing problems facing South Africa.
”Hard-core poverty” — a lack of food, fuel or cash income — has remained steady since 2000. Africans remain most affected (13%), particularly in rural provinces, but the survey also recorded a sharp increase in food shortages among whites, from 1% in 2000 to 8%.
While this could be ”an early indicator of changing opportunity structures in post-apartheid South Africa”, the survey emphasises that the increase is not statistically significant, given the small sample group. — Marianne Merten