The Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit
The Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit (SALDRU) conducts research
directed at improving the well-being of South Africa’s poor. It was established in 1975. Over
the next two decades the unit’s research played a central role in documenting the human
costs of apartheid. Key projects from this period included the Farm Labour Conference
(1976), the Economics of Health Care Conference (1978), and the Second Carnegie Enquiry
into Poverty and Development in South Africa (1983-86). At the urging of the African Na-
tional Congress, from 1992-1994 SALDRU and the World Bank coordinated the Project for
Statistics on Living Standards and Development (PSLSD). This project provide baseline data
for the implementation of post-apartheid socio-economic policies through South Africa’s first
non-racial national sample survey.
In the post-apartheid period, SALDRU has continued to gather data and conduct research
directed at informing and assessing anti-poverty policy. In line with its historical contribution,
SALDRU’s researchers continue to conduct research detailing changing patterns of well-
being in South Africa and assessing the impact of government policy on the poor. Current
research work falls into the following research themes: post-apartheid poverty; employment
and migration dynamics; family support structures in an era of rapid social change; public
works and public infrastructure programmes, financial strategies of the poor; common prop-
erty resources and the poor. Key survey projects include the Langeberg Integrated Family
Survey (1999), the Khayelitsha/Mitchell’s Plain Survey (2000), the ongoing Cape Area Panel
Study (2001-) and the Financial Diaries Project.
Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit
School of Economics
University of Cape Town
Private Bag, Rondebosch, 7701
Cape Town, South Africa
Tel: +27 (0) 21 650 5696
Fax: +27 (0) 21 650 5697
Email: [email protected]
Web: www.saldru.uct.ac.za
SALDRU
School of Economics
UNIVERSITY OF
CAPE TOWN