Intersectionality and employment equity in South Africa

The objectives of the South African Employment Equity Act include providing equal opportunity in the workplace. However, the existing methods for achieving equality of opportunity have been unsuccessful because they do not engage sufficiently with the complexity of, and reasons for, inequality in the workplace. This thesis argues that the body of literature on intersectionality has great potential to contribute to the process of improving equality of opportunity. Derived from the literature, an intersectional analysis offers employers a way to engage with the complex nature of inequality, by obtaining a fuller, more nuanced and specific understanding of the phenomenon in a particular place of work. In this way, profound and effective solutions can be found. The thesis offers background on employment equity in South Africa and an overview of intersectionality, which reveals its value as a theoretical paradigm. It then describes the development of instruments to be used to analyse (in)equality of opportunity in a workplace.

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Department of Political Studies

Year dc:date.issued

2012

Author dc:creator

• Warnat, Amber E

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11427/11959

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/11959