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Official Year Book of the Union / Republic of South Africa

Literature › Primary sources

Kind official statistical series
Producer Office of Census and Statistics / Department of Information
Coverage 1910-1990
Works using it 30

Debates

Debate Works
Did the apartheid economy fail? Growth, productivity, investment and the post-1970s crisis 7
Cheap labour thesis and the function of the reserves 5
Farm labour: mechanisation, labour shedding, wages and labour control 5
Why apartheid ended: reform, transition and elite bargaining 4
Industrialisation, protection and industrial structure 4
Liberal vs revisionist: was apartheid functional or dysfunctional for capitalist growth? 4
Data reliability and econometric method 4
The mine migrant labour system: origins, recruitment, foreign labour and stabilisation 4
The job colour bar, white labour and its erosion 3
The state and capital: instrumentalism, autonomy and fractions of capital 3
Unemployment: causes, measurement and labour market institutions 3
Agricultural policy, productivity, farm size and land reform 2
Pre-Union colonial economy, the mineral revolution and the South African War 2
White electoral politics, delimitation and party systems 2
Homelands, separate development, decentralisation and removals 2
Influx control, pass laws and African urbanisation 2
Sanctions, disinvestment and the anti-apartheid movement 2
Racial wage gaps, wage convergence and wage determination 2
Worker consciousness, strikes and conflict on the mines and shop floor 2
Finance, capital flight, the 1985 debt crisis and banking 1
Education, Bantu Education and skills 1
Resistance and liberation movements 1
Living standards, health and social policy 1

Works using this source

Work As cited Period How used
Africa (1976) State of South Africa Yearbook 1971 1961 Source of the distribution of farms by size group and value in 1961, used to show land concentration.
Arndt (1928) Official Year Book of the Union of South Africa Nos. 5-8 1910-1926 Source for bank balance sheets, reserve ratios, savings bank and imports statistics.
Atkinson (2007) Union Office of Census and Statistics (1937) Official Year Book, no. 18 1923-1936 Source for Table 2.1 showing decline of black livestock and crop production on white farms.
Becker (1988) Official Yearbook 1979 and 1986 and South African Reserve Bank Supplement to the Quarterly Bulletin (factor intensities) 1973, 1978, 1984 Table 7 estimates labour (by race) and non-labour shares of value added by sector, used to argue that sanctions-induced sectoral shifts raise labour intensity.
Becker (1988) Official Yearbook of the Republic of South Africa, 1979 and 1986 (Bantustan and South African GDP by sector) 1976-1980 Table 3 compares sectoral GDP of the Bantustans with South Africa to show the very low homeland share and the dual economy.
Beittel (1995a) Union of South Africa, Official Year Book No. 8, 1923 pre-1917 Original publication cited to show that strike statistics before 1917 are extremely incomplete.
Beittel (1995b) Union of South Africa, Official Year Book No. 8, 1923 (p. 217) to 1917 (published 1927) Original publication noting that pre-1917 strike statistics are extremely incomplete.
Brits (1969) Union of South Africa year books (maize export figures) 1910/11-1920/21 Gives export quantities of maize in selected seasons.
Christopher (1994a) South Africa: Official Yearbook of the Union of South Africa 1948 1948 (published 1949) Establishes the 1948 baseline of 15 resident South African high commissions and missions, plus non-reciprocal foreign representation.
Duncan (1990a) Union Year Book (Nos. 8, 9, 25: 1925, 1926-7, 1946) 1925-1946 Used for descriptive facts on the Factories Act, the inspectorate's structure, and the date and application of the 1941 Act.
Duncan (1993) Union Year Book (Vols 13, 15, 18, 20, 23) 1930-1946 Supplies housing loan totals, hospital bed counts for non-Europeans, uses of the Slums Act, and Chamber of Mines health aid.
Fedderke and Simkins (2004) Union Year Book 1910-1916 and later editions (1916-1945) 1910-1945 Gives public debt in 1910, banks and life assurance companies, and relief-work and civilised-labour employment figures.
Houghton and Dagut (1973) Official Year Book of the Union of South Africa No. 9, 1926-7 1926-7 Source for the civilized-labour policy and Prime Minister's Circular No. 5 of 1924.
Inman and Rubinfeld (2008) South African Department of Information, Perskor, South Africa, Various Years 1977-1993 Average military, police and justice spending (33.7 bn Rand) used to compute the apartheid security tax burden on elite adults.
Inman and Rubinfeld (2013) South African Department of Information, Perskor, South Africa, Various Years 1977-93 Source for apartheid-era annual military, police and prison spending (33.7bn Rand) in the 'peace dividend' calculation.
Johnson (1982) South Africa 1974: Official Yearbook of the Republic of South Africa 1973-74 Describes the compulsory, free white schooling, curriculum structure, National Education policy principles and separate development aims.
Knight (1976a) Official Yearbook of the Republic of South Africa; Department of Agriculture, 1975 Abstract of Agricultural Statistics (Tables 80, 89) 1960-1975 Homeland agricultural GDP growth, producer prices and agricultural production volume, used to compare production and population growth.
Knight (1976b) Official Yearbook of the Republic of South Africa 1960-1970 Homeland GDP from agriculture, forestry and fishing rose 33% 1960-70, compared with price rise to infer real growth under 1% per year.
Lumby (1974) Official Year Book of the Union of South Africa (Nos. 3-22) 1910-1941 Source for revenue and expenditure, export values by commodity, gold-mining statistics and budget surpluses.
Nattrass (1976a) South Africa 1974, Official Year Book 1974 Cited for population growth and for subsistence output per worker in the homelands (immiserisation claim).
Nattrass (1976b) South Africa 1974 (and 1975 edition), Department of Information, Pretoria 1974-1975 Provides the Department of Statistics migrant estimate for comparison and the GDP, subsistence and agricultural output figures behind the remittance estimates.
Nattrass (1990) Official Year Book of the Union, no.29, 1956/7 1956/7 Describes the powers of the Controller of Industrial Manpower.
Perkins et al. (2005a) Official Year Book of the Union (1916, 1917, 1925, 1933) 1916-1933 editions Source for railway lines, roads, ports, phone lines; also for dates of the first telephone exchanges.
Perkins et al. (2005b) Official Year Book of the Union (1916, 1917, 1925, 1933) 1916-1933 editions Source for early rail lines, roads, ports, telephone lines and the dates of first telephone exchanges.
Petterson (1951) Union of South Africa, Official Yearbook, Vol. 23 (Pretoria, 1947) 1947 edition Source for Johannesburg climate data, maize yields per acre in the Maize Triangle, the Bantu General Tax of one pound, and the quotation on native labor under white supervision.
Savage (1984) Official Year Book of the Union of South Africa (Nos. 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 16, 22) 1916-1940 (selected years) Fills gaps in the prosecution series for early years when Police reports lack figures.
Savage (1986) Official Year Book of the Union of South Africa (Year Books 1, 5, 16, 22) 1916, 1921, 1934, 1940 Fills gaps in the police series for years in which the police reports lack pass law prosecution figures.
Schirmer (2008) Statistics Office series on the 'principal manufacturing industries of the Union' (20 sectors), South African Year Book 1929; 1930 1918-1929 Basis for Tables 1 and 2 and Figure 1 on value added, employment, firm counts, capital per firm, and the correlation against tariff changes.
Schirmer (2008) Tariff level changes series 1920-1929 (as plotted in Table 2) 1920-1929 Percentage changes in tariff levels are correlated against value-added changes to show weak association (r<0.5).
Schirmer (2008) Union of South Africa, South African Year Book, 1924, 1929, 1930 (manufacturing statistics, net output/value added 1915-1929) 1915-1929 Provides net output/value added totals, 1920-21 contraction and 6.1% average growth to 1929, and the national sector totals.
Sisk (1989) Official Yearbook of the Republic of South Africa, 1985 (election results 1948-1977 and 1981) 1948-1981 Supplies NP seat counts and share of House of Assembly seats 1948-1977 and the Afrikaner vote share for the 1981 comparison.
Sisk (1989) Official Yearbook, 1985, pp. 180-181 (Afrikaner NP vote 85% in 1977 to 63% in 1981) 1977-1981 Documents the decline in Afrikaner support for the NP between the 1977 and 1981 elections.
Spandau (1972) Official Year Book of the Union, No. 29, 1956-57 1941-1945 Describes the wartime Controller of Industrial Manpower, wage freezing and dilution in engineering.
Van Schoor (1986) Year Book of the Union of South Africa, 1926 1926 Quoted for the official definition of 'uncivilized labour' under the civilized labour policy.