Labour productivity and employee diversity in the South African workplace

Abstract

The aim of this article is to determine the impact that employee diversity attributes have on labour productivity in the South African workplace. Given the perceived general low levels of labour productivity in the South African economy, this particular research aims to serve as a further contribution to our understanding of the labour productivity debate when a broad range of employee attributes at firm and individual levels are considered. A firm-based model is used for the estimation of the link between the employee group demographic characteristics and labour productivity, and an employee remuneration model is used to estimate the link between individual employee diversity demographics and labour productivity. The main conclusions of the estimation results are that a less age-diverse workforce, higher education/training levels, greater levels of gender diversity and a more racially diverse workforce are pre-requisites for higher real remuneration and labour productivity benefits.