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The effect of COVID-19 on women working in the South African informal economy and the need for social protection
Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2026.
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University
2026
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| _version_ | 1867613762364637184 |
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| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author | Bob, Shaka Keny |
| author2 | Dubbeld, Bernard |
| author_browse | Bob, Shaka Keny Dubbeld, Bernard |
| author_facet | Dubbeld, Bernard Bob, Shaka Keny |
| author_sort | Bob, Shaka Keny |
| collection | Thesis |
| dc_rights_str_mv | Stellenbosch University |
| description | Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2026. |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:scholar.sun.ac.za:10019.1/135631 |
| institution | Stellenbosch University (South Africa) |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:41:16.700Z |
| license_str | Other — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from SUNScholar — Stellenbosch University Repository |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| publishDateRange | 2026 |
| publishDateSort | 2026 |
| publisher | Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University |
| publisherStr | Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | SUNScholar — Stellenbosch University Repository |
| spelling | oai:scholar.sun.ac.za:10019.1/135631 The effect of COVID-19 on women working in the South African informal economy and the need for social protection Bob, Shaka Keny Dubbeld, Bernard Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Sociology & Social Anthropology. Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2026. Bob, S. K. 2026. The effect of COVID-19 on women working in the South African informal economy and the need for social protection. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Stellenbosch: Stellenbosch University [online]. Available: https://scholar.sun.ac.za/items/13aed851-9ec2-4022-bdd9-6bc68db84e7a In South Africa, as in many other countries, social protection systems play a critical role in protecting people against systemic and ordinary economic shocks. However, in South Africa, there are debates on how comprehensive such social protection is, especially in relation to the informal sector, and the women and non-citizens who work in this sector. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted some of the difficulties with South Africa’s social protection, and even the emergency measures introduced by the government were not as comprehensive as promised. Through an analysis combining quantitative data, specifically the National Income Dynamics Coronavirus Rapid Mobile Survey and qualitative data on informal workers at the Bellville Transport Interchange, my doctoral study offers an empirical basis from which to understand the gaps in social protection in South Africa’s informal economy. The focus of my study is therefore to understand how informal workers coped with the COVID-19 pandemic and to find out to what extent they require some form of social protection to address their vulnerabilities to ensure that they can sustain their livelihoods. Conceptually, the study rests on 3 theoretical approaches: First, theories of the welfare state provide valuable frameworks for understanding how social protection can be extended to informal workers by illuminating the underlying principles, institutional arrangements, and political dynamics that shape welfare provision. Esping-Andersen’s typology, for example, shows how different welfare regimes (liberal, conservative-corporatist, and social democratic) vary in their approaches to decommodification and stratification, which helps explain why some systems more readily include non-standard workers than others. From a developmentalist perspective, welfare states in the Global South are often characterised as productivist or informalised, highlighting the need to design schemes that recognise informal work as a structural feature rather than an anomaly. Secondly, Feminist theories on neoliberalism contribute crucially to discussions on social protection by exposing how market-driven reforms often intensify gender inequalities and undervalue care work, thereby leaving many women—especially those in informal and precarious employment—without adequate coverage. These theories argue that neoliberal policies, with their emphasis on individual responsibility, fiscal austerity, and the privatisation of social services, shift the burden of social reproduction onto households and disproportionately onto women. This lens highlights how social protection systems rooted in formal employment and contributory schemes structurally exclude women who dominate the unpaid and informal care economies. Lastly, theories on the informal sector help explain why extending social protection to informal workers is both necessary and challenging, by highlighting the structural and institutional factors that shape informality. Dualist theories view the informal sector as separate from the formal economy, often comprising marginalised workers excluded from formal employment and social security, thus justifying targeted social assistance to reduce poverty and vulnerability. Structuralist theories, by contrast, see informality as deeply embedded within capitalist production systems, where firms deliberately outsource and casualise labour to cut costs—implying that social protection must confront power imbalances in labour markets and regulate employer practices to prevent informalisation. Legalist theories emphasise how complex regulations and high compliance costs push workers and firms to operate informally, suggesting that simplifying registration systems and incentivising formalisation can broaden social protection coverage. Collectively, these theories underscore that informality is heterogeneous and shaped by state policies, market dynamics, and socio-political exclusion, which means social protection for informal workers must be flexible, inclusive, and designed to overcome structural barriers to participation. These theories helped me to understand how the government’s attempt through the Disaster Management Act to aid the most vulnerable in the pandemic both exacerbated already existing gaps in social protection and created new difficulties for some in the informal sector. The study found that self-employed food vendors faced the most challenges in coping with the hard lockdown restrictions. Government travel restrictions on the taxi industry had negative repercussions on informal workers because pedestrians were greatly reduced in number due to provisions of the National Disaster Act. Moreover, clothing traders suffered immensely during the hard lockdown and reported zero earnings because the sale of clothing was banned during this period as a mitigatory measure of curbing the spread of the coronavirus. To transform their livelihoods, informal workers had to come up with innovative trading and livelihood solutions to survive the pandemic. These coping measures included temporary employment in the formal sector of the economy or an attempt to diversify the products and services that they sell. This research reveals that the formation of the Bellville African Informal Traders Association has improved informal workers’ bargaining power within tripartite labour-related platforms. Whether such forms of association have the power to change the structure of social protection in the economy, is something that I reflect on in the conclusion of the thesis. Doctoral 2026-04-07T05:41:21Z 2026-04-07T05:41:21Z 2026-03 Thesis https://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/135631 en Stellenbosch University 291 pages : ill. application/pdf Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University |
| spellingShingle | Bob, Shaka Keny The effect of COVID-19 on women working in the South African informal economy and the need for social protection |
| title | The effect of COVID-19 on women working in the South African informal economy and the need for social protection |
| title_full | The effect of COVID-19 on women working in the South African informal economy and the need for social protection |
| title_fullStr | The effect of COVID-19 on women working in the South African informal economy and the need for social protection |
| title_full_unstemmed | The effect of COVID-19 on women working in the South African informal economy and the need for social protection |
| title_short | The effect of COVID-19 on women working in the South African informal economy and the need for social protection |
| title_sort | effect of covid 19 on women working in the south african informal economy and the need for social protection |
| url | https://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/135631 |
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