Is the occupational structure of Cape Town's workers becoming polarised or professionalised?

What is it about?

This study is concerned with measuring changes in Cape Town by analysing the changing occupational structure and its relationship to racial inequality and racial residential desegregation. It addresses theoretical debates in South African Urban Studies and the Social Polarisation debate in urban studies.

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Why is it important?

This study is important to the debates about inequality in urban South Africa because it presents evidence that racial inequality, as measured by the occupational division of labour, is declining steadily. Furthermore, it presents evidence that this declining racial inequality is being accompanied by the racial residential desegregation of the formerly whites-only neighbourhoods. This evidence stands in contrast to popular and scholarly views of post-apartheid Cape Town, which argue that racial occupational inequality and racial segregation have not changed since the end of apartheid.