With the support of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the Ford Foundation, SCIS has embarked on a three-year research project on the role of digital technologies in reshaping the world of work(ers) in the global South, and the implications for inequality. The impact of digital technologies on the world of work(ers) has been much debate. Some suggest that technological innovation has the potential to increase productivity, promote rapid growth, create jobs and improve the delivery of public services. States can play a supportive role flexibilising the labour market, promoting upskilling and introducing new forms of social protection delinked from employment. Others argue that full automation is inevitable and that the impact of labour-saving technology on the world of work is likely to be catastrophic. States can play a supportive role by shifting attention to more radical forms of distribution such as universal basic income, which can relieve workers from the drudgery of labour and enable more emancipatory patterns of work to flourish.

Much of the debate on the impact of digital technologies on the world of work(ers) has been speculative; and where substantiated by empirical evidence, it has stemmed primarily from the global North. This project centres on the Future of Work(ers) in the global South. It defines work broadly, to include productive and reproductive activities in the formal and informal economy. It conceives of the development and application of digital technologies as a contested terrain between workers, state and capital; and is particularly interested in how workers accept, appropriate or resist digital technologies through collective struggle. Focus sectors include financial services, retail, platform work, mining, manufacturing, agriculture and care work. Importantly, the global South is incredibly diverse in terms of levels of economic development, labour market structures and degrees of digital penetration. To capture this diversity, the project has selected the following five cases countries: Colombia, Ethiopia, India, Mozambique, and South Africa.

In 2020, research centred on two themes in the five-country cases. The first theme, “Digital technologies and the political economy of labour markets” locates debates around the digitalisation of work within a broader analysis of the political economy of labour markets and analyses policy options for improving the conditions of work(ers). The second theme, “Digital technologies and social protection”, explores the role of social protection, both as a buffer to the adverse effects of digital technological change on the world of work(ers) and as a subject of digitalisation in its own right.

The research manager is Dr Ruth Castel-Branco, and the research associate is Ms Seipati Mokhema.

In 2020, the SCIS, with the support of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the Ford Foundation, is embarking on a three-year, five country study examining the impact of technology on the future of work and inequality in five key sectors: mining, banking and financial services, care work, manufacturing and the digital economy.

There has been a lot written about the impact of technological change and the advancement of artificial intelligence on the future of work. The most common form of argument is that the displacement of workers by machines is inevitable and the impact on employment will be catastrophic, and so we need to think about the viability of alternatives as jobs become increasingly scarce. Much of the thinking underlying this view is dismayingly speculative and supported by very little empirical evidence. Where there is evidence, it is almost exclusively from the developed world and there is a need to gather this evidence for the global South. While it is undeniable that artificial intelligence-based technologies will have significant impacts on employment and, more broadly, on society, we believe that the argument in this form ignores important considerations about the role of work in society, and the role of society in shaping work, as well as the opportunities for new, decent work that technology presents. Moreover, the debate currently ignores the specificities of employment in the global South – for example, the large informal economy, the gendered patterns of paid and unpaid work, and the inequalities in incomes within countries and between countries in the North and the South.

It is important to recognise that while technological change will have negative impacts on some elements of the labour market, it also has the potential to have an emancipatory impact: to improve the drudgery of work, to reshape the nature and distribution of unpaid work, and to create new opportunities for marginalized workers to enter local and global production systems. The key research question for our project is to better understand the implications of the current processes of technological change on the future of work and inequality, with a particular focus on the global South, and to develop innovative solutions to guide economic, social and labour market policy

The focus of this research theme is on the changing world of work and its impact on working life in Africa. Our aim is to contribute to discussions on the future of work while shifting the debate from dominant narratives of technological determinism to the power dynamics among precarious workers. In so doing, it will develop debates within inequality studies about the forces that are driving the production and reproduction of inequality in the global South.

Our focus to date has been on six projects:

• A comparative study of platform workers in South Africa and Kenya, with a specific focus on food couriers. This project is funded by the FES.
• Economic and social Upgrading in Global Production Networks. Drawing on the auto component sector of Gauteng, the research focuses on the relationship between economic and social upgrading in global production networks. We argue that economic upgrading is important for sustainable social upgrading, however that social upgrading improvements for workers neither always trickle down nor follow automatically from economic upgrading but are more often than not mainly a result of labour agency—the initiatives taken by workers to improve their conditions. The aim is to produce a book-length manuscript on social upgrading that foregrounds workers’ power as a crucial determinant of social upgrading.
• Work and Inequality in the Digital Age: A Global South Perspective on the Future of Labour. The aim is to produce a book that discusses two major drivers of ongoing structural change (globalization and digitalization) and their implications for labour. This manuscript has been commissioned by Bristol University Press.
• Remote work and worker well-being in the post-ɳ°ÍÌåÓý¹ÙÍø_2024Å·ÖÞ±­²©²Êapp@ Era. The research has focused on what home work means for the work-life balance of women in South Africa
• Beyond traditional trade unionism: innovative worker responses in three African cities. In this research, we examined three examples where workers innovate and experiment with new forms of worker organisation in three African cities: Kampala, Johannesburg and Cape Town.
• “Decent Work for all”: Rethinking decent work in the context of South Africa. We argue that there is a need to rethink what a commitment to decent work would mean in the context of a country such as South Africa with large numbers of long term unemployed.

Research Team: Professor Edward Webster, Dr Alex M. Mashilo, Fikile Masikane.

Completed Publications: 2020/ 2021

Webster, E. and Ludwig, C.  2020. Decent work for all: `Rethinking decent work in the context of South Africa, Special issue, Decent Work revisited: Effects, implications and limits of the concept of decent work. Twenty years on.  2020 SOZIALPOLITIK.CH VOL. 2/2020–ARTICLE 2.3. 

Webster, E. and Forrest, K. 2020. Role of the ILO during and after apartheid. Labour Studies Journal.

Webster, E. Ludwig, C., Masikane, F. and Spooner, D. 2021 Beyond traditional trade unionism: innovative worker responses in three African cities. Globalisations 

Webster, E 2020, ‘The Uberisation of work: the challenge of regulating platform capitalism: a commentary’. International Review of Applied Economics. Volume 34. Pp 512-521 

Webster, E. 2000. ‘Rethinking the World of Work in Southern Africa: Building a Social Floor’, in Jan Fritz and Tina Uys (editors), Clinical Sociology in Southern   Africa. Cape Town: Juta Publishers. Pp183-200

Bishoff, C., Masondo, T. and Webster, Webster, E. 2021 Workers’ participation at plant level: A South African case studies Economic and Industrial Democracy. Vol. 42 no 2

Mashilo, A.M. 2021 ‘Technological Revolution in the South African Automotive Manufacturing Industry and the Role of Labour’: Book chapter to be included in: South Africa Confronts the Fourth Industrial Revolution era—Challenges and Possibilities: Case Studies from key sectors edited by the Institute for Global Dialogue submitted Institute for Global Dialogue.

McGregor, W. and Webster, E. 2021. Building a regional solidarity network of transnational activists: an African case study. Tempo Social. Brazil