The relationship between attaining Matric and labour market outcomes in South Africa

Abstract

The South African labour market is characterised by a persistently high level and rate of unemployment and constrained capacity to create jobs. Given these conditions in the labour market, it is of interest to understand the role educational attainment plays in labour market outcomes. While literature on overall educational attainment and labour market outcomes exists in South Africa, focusing on the general relationship between the two variables, few studies explicitly focus on examining Matric in terms of labour market outcomes. Existing literature shows that possessing Matric presents considerably more possibilities of finding employment than lower grades. Given the key role of secondary completion for labour market outcomes, this study therefore investigated whether having Matric is still sufficient to ensure good labour market outcomes.