Trade and Industrial Policy Strategies (TIPS) senior economist Nokwanda Maseko has complained that the State is overcompensating and providing too many subsidies to make up for industrial policy's failures in offering opportunities to women in key industries.

“There’s an overcompensation and over-subsidisation by the State to respond to the failures of industrial policy in terms of its giving opportunities to women within industries that have been considered as core to industrial policy,” she said during a TIPS-hosted webinar on gender equality in the South African economy, on August 13.

She noted that the spread of employment for men and women across various sectors varied.

The sector that continued to see the largest number of employed women was in the community, social and personal services sector. In many cases, these were services that were funded by the State, which Maseko said were over-subsidised.

However, she acknowledged that, across all sectors, there had been general growth in women's employment, with more women taking on leadership roles, such as legislators or senior managers.

Maseko noted that black women were much more likely than white women to fully own property, thanks to State-subsidisation programmes not afforded to women of other groups – such as Indian, Asian or white women. However, despite owning more property, Maseko said the median value of those properties was not high, as most were valued at less than R500 000.

“You can't really do that much in terms of getting to use that house as equity if you're going to be looking for financing for anything, which is why it doesn't work. So high property ownership rates, that's great, but it doesn't translate into usable equity that can then facilitate improvement in economic outcomes,” she said.

She decried the fact that government continued to support industrialisation policies that favoured “heavy” industries where women were less likely to seek employment, such as mining and manufacturing.

Maseko said women’s access to industrial policy remained limited by a focus on “hard hat” industries, and that key industrial policy frameworks had not clearly outlined how women’s participation would be increased.

“Women, especially black women, are over-represented in social services. It's great being a doctor, the pay is high, but generally, most black women are nurses. There’s limitations again there, which is not to say that nurses are not important. Nurses are very important, but we undervalue that work,” Maseko said.

However, TIPS senior economist Dr Neva Makgetla pointed out that employment figures among South African women have risen from 25% in the mid-1990s to about 35% currently, compared with a relatively unchanged figure of about 45% employment among men.

She noted that about 4% of South African adults were self-employed, compared with about 15% in the world’s upper middle-income countries, excluding China, which has a self-employment rate of about 24%.

Makgetla said that, to improve this, government would need to prioritise competitiveness and growth prospects in its industrial policy approach, rather than focusing on economic rescue operations.

Moreover, there would need to be greater protection against competition, such as import tariffs, and guaranteed offtake and localisation agreements. However, this would only work if it supported competitiveness strategies, rather than replacing them.