SALDRU researcher, Rocco Zizzamia, of St Anne’s College at Oxford University won the Papiya Ghosh Thesis Prize.
Rocco’s thesis explores the effects that volatility in the South African labour market has on individual well-being, specifically focusing on those (paradoxical) cases in which disadvantaged workers turn down or quit wage jobs.
A key conclusion is that workers who have alternative livelihood options may in fact turn down or quit wage work as a welfare maximising choice. This finding prompts a closer interrogation of the prevailing orthodoxy that sees employment creation as the main solution to poverty among the non-employed. Read more here.