Dr Nwabisa Makaluza has questioned social injustice since childhood. Born in Butterworth in the Eastern Cape, she often wondered why certain folk were treated differently from others. “At a very young age, I was really interested in inequalities… trying to make sense of them.” She wanted to get to the heart of economic development “to find out how to get equity”.
This led to her BCom (Actuarial Science) degree, and later her BCom Honours (Mathematical Statistics and Probability) and Master’s in Economics degrees from SU. She is currently a research associate at the Research on Socio- Economic Policy unit at SU, where she also completed her PhD in Economics. “What I thought economics would do for me, is find answers to my questions.” But she found more questions – which she enjoys.
During her foray into labour, she studied the informal sector. Her work focused specifically on which section of the sector showed
potential for growth, versus employment purely for survival. “There were gender disparities. The informal sector has quite a lot of women, but they were mostly in the survivalist sector. This bothered me. “It’s a replicating cycle – you need initial capital in order to get into growth enterprises, but if you are trying to feed your family and you’re trying to get by, then you end up finding your way into the survivalist part of the informal sector.”
During the last years of her PhD studies, she accessed a data set mapping the country’s unemployment rate from about 1996 up to 2016, and a paper by Martin Wittenberg released around the dawn of democracy. “We had this high unemployment rate, but it was also a time of hope.” She saw our country’s unemployment rate flatlining.
“In recent times the curve has started to go upwards, and I thought, no way. There’s got to be something else.”
Then it dawned on her: “A running thread through all of this, in addition to growth, is education.” She felt she could be most “useful” where her work could assist children to gain foundational literacy and numeracy skills that would benefit them throughout their lives.
Nwabisa headed up the Limpopo intervention of the Funda Wande NPO, which aims to get children reading for meaning and calculating with confidence by 2030. Using a randomised control trial of 120 schools, a report by independent evaluator Cally Ardington found that the group that received teaching assistants, materials, and teacher training, increased Grade 2 learner outcomes by 125% beyond the standard expected learning outcomes of their academic year.
She also co-wrote a research paper that showed girls have higher learning outcomes than boys in education, whereas the labour market works invertedly. “In the labour market, men get paid more than women. It’s got a lot to do with the gendered job market and social norms.”
Nwabisa believes access to opportunities and “disruption through advocacy” into different fields of study and sectors are essential to
equalising the gender and race gaps. “As long as you don’t have a diverse community, you will then perpetuate existing norms.”
Is International Women’s Day making inroads?
“The thing about social justice is that, while you are living in it, it seems slow moving. But, when we take a long-form
view and compare my grandmother to my mother, to me, then there has been substantial change.
“It doesn’t feel like we’ve done enough. But I do think that my niece will have a better life, better access to opportunities, and better
outcomes. And I acknowledge the work of the women who came before, because I’ve benefited and had better outcomes and
opportunities.”
- Nwabisa is part of a panel of incredible Matie women set to discuss the topic, ‘The Gender Gap: Creating Transparency for Women to Thrive’.
- To commemorate International Women’s Day that is celebrated across the globe on 8 March, the Stellenbosch Women Alumnae Network (SWAN) is shining the spotlight on our remarkable women, not just for a day, but for the entire month of March.
- Read more here:
https://console.vpaper.ca/stellenbosch-university/swan-iwd23_eng/
