Racial and Gender Wage Differentials in South Africa: What can Cohort Data tell?

Three subsequent years of the October Household Survey data are
used to construct a synthetic panel. Preparing cross sectional data
that way allows to better utilise individual information and to
address temporal developments also in the absence of genuine panel
data. This paper focuses on gender and race specific cohort wages.
Average earnings of birth cohorts of African and White workers
employed full-time in formal sector jobs are followed over time and
wage differentials as well as the mobility of cohort wages are
studied in detail. A decomposition of African cohort wages into
age, cohort, and year effects gives information about the existence
of cohort effects. Results suggest that especially for African
women such generational trends may differ from the theoretical
expectation. However, to arrive at assured results a greater number
of periods is needed.