The missing poor: Data blind spots perpetuate social injustice
Household surveys systematically exclude or undercount vulnerable populations and these exclusions and underestimations will materially affect estimates of need such…
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RESEP contributes to a BER study assessing progress with the NDP.
RESEP's Servaas van der Berg and Ronelle Burger recently contributed to a Bureau for Economic Development (BER) report tracking the progress of the National Development…
February 22, 2021 PDF
Benchmarking early grade reading literacy skills in Nguni languages
To prevent children from falling behind in the developmental sequence of reading, a shared vision of what reading success looks like at each step is…
February 16, 2021 PDF
About RESEP
Research on Socioeconomic Policy (RESEP) is a group of scholars and students interested in issues of poverty, income distribution, social mobility, economic development and social policy. Based at the Department of Economics at the University of Stellenbosch. The team is lead by Servaas van der Berg, whose position as the Chair in the Economics of Social Policy since 2008, has lead to the further consolidation of research within these areas.
Recent Papers
The latest working papers, publications, reports and policy briefs by RESEP researchers.
2020 Authors Debra Shepherd Development Development - Working Papers Development 2020 Labour - Working Papers Labour 2020 Research Outputs Working Papers
December 7, 2020
The gendered effects of the ongoing lockdown and school closures in South Africa: Evidence from NIDS-CRAM Waves 1 and 2
The data from Wave 1 of NIDS-CRAM showed that women were disproportionately affected by the Covid- 19 crisis and the first month of the lockdown…
Schools in the time of COVID-19: impacts of the pandemic on curriculum
This working paper presents the findings of research into the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the curriculum in South Africa. Four research questions frame…
November 3, 2020 PDF
Separating Employment Effects into Job Destruction and Job Creation
This paper presents new evidence on the employment effects of a large increase in agricultural minimum wages in South Africa using anonymized tax data.
May 18, 2020 PDF
Mother-tongue Instruction or Straight-for-English? The Primary Education Policy Dilemma
Language-in-education policy has a powerful influence on social and economic relations, with complex dimensions in multilingual and unequal societies such as South Africa.
May 6, 2020 PDF
Perseverance, Passion, and Poverty: Examining the association between grit and reading achievement in high-poverty schools
Stellenbosch Working Paper Series No. WP06/2020This paper examines whether school characteristics moderate the association between grit and reading achievement in a sample of Grade 6 learners in high-poverty contexts.
April 20, 2020 PDF
Ongoing Projects
Ongoing Projects
October 22, 2020
Reading and socio-emotional skills in challenging school contexts: Evidence from South African primary schools
This project is linked to the Early Learning Programme (ELP) and uses data from the Readership and Literacy project but is also supplemented by others…
A portion of this project includes reanalysing WCED CEMIS and Systemic Tests to determine how early learning performance affects progressions, dropout, and matric results. The…
Ongoing Projects
October 21, 2020
What SA_SAMS/Data Driven Districts data reveal about South African School Education
Using longitudinal data components and disability statistics, this project aims to investigate school-based assessments. Funds have been received from the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation.…
Team
RESEP (Research on Socio-Economic Policy)
RESEP is a group of researchers in the Department of Economics at the University of Stellenbosch.
Funding
RESEP has received funding for its research from various organisations and governments. In recent years, funding for research has been provided by, amongst others, The Allan Gray Orbis Foundation Endowment; The UK’s Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC); UNICEF offices in South Africa, Namibia and Eswatini; Zenex Foundation, Tshikululu Social Investments, PSPPD (Presidency/European Union) and The National Research Foundation (NRF).
