Manpower Surveys

Literature › Primary sources

Kind	official statistical series
Producer	Department of Labour / Manpower / Central Statistical Service
Coverage	1969-1995
Works using it	7

Project holdings

The project holds this source in full. See Manpower Survey.

Debates

Debate	Works
The job colour bar, white labour and its erosion	9
Liberal vs revisionist: was apartheid functional or dysfunctional for capitalist growth?	6
Why apartheid ended: reform, transition and elite bargaining	3
Racial wage gaps, wage convergence and wage determination	3
Sanctions, disinvestment and the anti-apartheid movement	2
Did the apartheid economy fail? Growth, productivity, investment and the post-1970s crisis	1
Homelands, separate development, decentralisation and removals	1
Unemployment: causes, measurement and labour market institutions	1

Works using this source

Work	As cited	Period	How used
Crankshaw (1990)	Manpower Survey No.8, Volume 2 (1969)	1969	Gives the semi-skilled share of the workforce (12%) in 1969, contrasted with 1% in 1958.
Crankshaw (1996)	Manpower Survey 1990: Occupational Information, Report No. 02-01-01	1990	Source for 1990 racial and sexual breakdowns across semi-professional, routine white-collar and skilled trade occupations (Tables 2-4).
Crankshaw (1996)	Summary of the Results of Manpower Surveys No. 13 (1979), No. 14 (1981), No. 15 (1983)	1979-1983	Establishes that the Manpower Surveys excluded 'independent' homeland firms and bureaucracies (Bophuthatswana, Transkei, Venda, Ciskei) from specific years.
Kerby (2014)	Man Power Surveys 1970, 1980 and 1985 (urban African manufacturing wages)	1970, 1980, 1985	Supplies the urban African semi-skilled wage benchmarks against which homeland RIDP wages are compared in Figure 3.
Kerby (2014)	Manpower Survey 1980 (Statistics South Africa / Manpower Commission), National Archives Pretoria, with Bell (1987) data	1980 (and series 1969-1985)	Shows share of manufacturing employment outside metropolitan areas rising while the main industrial complexes stagnated or declined (Figure 1).
Mariotti (2008)	South African Manpower Surveys (Department of Labor/Manpower), biennial 1969-1985 except 1979	1969-1985 (biennial, no 1979)	Establishes rising share of occupations majority-black and rising black/white weighted occupational skill rank; also used in the equation 4 regression on black share changes.
Mariotti (2009a)	South African Manpower Surveys (biennial 1969-1985 except 1979), 271 occupations by race and gender	1969-1985	Shows the growing share of occupations with proportional African employment and the rising weighted African skill rank, evidencing desegregation of semi-skilled jobs.
Mariotti (2009b)	South African Manpower Surveys (biennial 1969-1985 except 1979), 271 occupations by race and gender	1969-1985	Used to measure the share of occupations with African employment near the population share and the weighted African and white occupational skill rank (Table 5).
Nattrass (1977)	Manpower Survey No. 8 (1969) and Manpower Survey No. 11 (1975), Department of Labour	1969, 1975	Used to compute growth rates of Black and White employment in professional, managerial, clerical and sales categories.