Post Apartheid Labour Market Series 1993-2025
South Africa, 1993 - 2025
Get MicrodataIdentification
zaf-df-palms-1993-2025-v4
Post Apartheid Labour Market Series 1993-2025
PALMS 1993-2025
| Name | Country code |
|---|---|
| South Africa | zaf |
Labour Force Survey
The Post-Apartheid Labour Market Series (PALMS) is a stacked cross sectional dataset created by DataFirst at the University of Cape Town. The latest (v4) PALMS dataset consists of microdata from 92 household surveys conducted by Statistics South Africa between 1994 and 2025, as well as the 1993 Project for Statistics on Living Standards and Development conducted by SALDRU at UCT. The Statistics South Africa surveys include the October Household Surveys from 1994 to 1999, the bi-annual Labour Force Surveys from 2000-2007, including the smaller LFS pilot survey from February 2000, and the Quarterly Labour Force Surveys from 2008-2025. The data is at individual level, but household level variables may be created using the household id variable uqnr. No attempt has been made to link individuals or households across waves, although there was a rotating panel element to parts of the LFS and as well as the QLFS.
There are currently 120 variables in the main data file and nearly 7.5 million observations, including children and the elderly. The variables included are mainly those to do with the labour market, although some household variables, such as dwelling type and access to services, as well as access to government social grants, are also included for some waves where these were asked. Not all variables from the data from all surveys are included. The surveys are regarded as one of the more reliable sources of labour market data, including earnings. However they generally contain little other income information, except for some incomplete attempts at capturing government grants. The PSLSD and OHSs were more omprehensive but the other forms of income data collected in these surveys have not been included in PALMS. One of the key pieces of value added in PALMS is the creation of a consistent earnings variable over all waves that collected earnings.
Survey data
Households and individuals
Version
v4: Edited, anonymised dataset for public distribution
2025-11-20
The current version of the Post Apartheid Labour Market Series (PALMS) is version 4 covering 1993-2025
Earlier versions of this dataset were:
Version 1.0.1:
The following derived variables were added to this version of the dataset:
enrollment3, enrolled: enrolment variables
hrslstwk: Hours worked in last week
employer1, businesstype1, businesstype2: questions about wage/self employment. More detailed in LFSs.
publicemp: a dummy for whether the individual is employed in the public sector
Changes in versions 1.0.2 and 1.0.3 were not recorded.
Version 1.0.4
The following derived variables were added to this version of the dataset:
Improved psu LFS 03:1 variable.
personnum in OHSs and LFSs to allow easier merging, on advice from Nicola Branson.
Extra EA/PSU variables in some years where these were missing.
numlabels, were also added, where these were missing.
Version 1.0.5
The following derived variables were added to this version of the dataset:
EA/PSU variables for both 2000 waves, both 2006 waves and both 2007 waves. EA variables may not always be consistent ACROSS waves but are correct WITHIN waves to allow for checks on the number of hh per ea, which look right in ALL LFS waves now.
Version 1.0.6.
In this version the 1994 income data from the OHS 1994 has been corrected, and the 1994 data no longer has the imputations and fixes from Statistics South Africa.
The OHS 1994 wage employment income is included as wageempincome2 and wageempincome3 (different for gross and net responses).
Version 1.0.7
This version has label changes (data signature is the same as version 1.0.6)
Version 1.0.8
In this version the variable uqnr_orig has been added, which is a string version of the household id variable exactly as it appeared in each survey. This will assist those researchers who wish to merge in extra data from the OHSs or LFSs.
Version 1.0.9, October 2012
The following variables have been added to this version of the data:
(i) The LFS variable for hours worked in last week
(ii) An homogenised EA variable
(iii) A variable indicating formality of firm an individual owns or works for
(iv) Variables for number of workers for self-employed (worker numbers for OHS only): selfformalreg selfvatreg selfpaidemp selfunpaidemp wageformalreg formalreg
In this version the OHS 1997 industry variable has been corrected to include industry of the self-employed.
Version 2.0, August 2013
(i) Included the QLFS up until March 2012 (inclusive)
(ii) Reworked approach to labour income variable creation (see documentation for more information)
Version 2.1, September 2013 (modified September 2015)
(i) Included a separate datafile with multiple imputations for labour income. This datafile is called "palmsv2.1miincomes" and can be used for analysis of trends in labour income over time. Details of the imputation process can be found in the document titled, "Multiply Imputed Labour Income Data, PALMS v2.1 (1994-2012)"
(ii) Also included with this version of the PALMS are the cross-entropy weights
Not all the files in this dataset are version 2.1. DataFirst versions at file level, so only the files which have been updated will be re-versioned in a new release. This prevents users having to download the files which have not been changed.
Some of the data files in this version of the dataset - the ones that remain unchanged - will therefore still be version 2. The dataset will receive the version number of the latest versioned file.
The PALMS 1994-2012 version 2.1 dataset consists of the following files:
The data files (unchanged version 2 files)
The cross-entropy weights (unchanged version 1.2 files)
The incomes data (unchanged version 2)
The imputed incomes data version 2.1
document
Version 3.1 includes data from the QLFS 2013-2015 and data from the 1993 survey "Project for Statistics on Living Standards and Development", conducted by SALDRU at UCT.
Version 3.2 had data from the QLFS 2016-2017 added to version 3.1
Changes in version 3.3 are the inclusion of:
Data from QLFS 2017 (Q 3 and Q4), QLFS 2018, and QLFS 2019 (Q1 and 2)
Earnings data from the QLFS released in the 2016 and 2017 Labour Market Dynamics in South Africa dataset.
Cross entropy weights that are based on the new Stats SA mid-year population estimates, extended back to 1993.
A corrected years of education variable.
Corrected nominal multiply imputed earnings data
A variable on whether the worker’s rm deducted Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) contributions
from their earnings.
3 digit industry code variables for both the industry and industry2 variables. industry is the 3 digit code for OHS 99 and the LFSs, whilst industry2 is the 3 digit code for the OHS 96-98 and the QLFS.
Additionally, in version 3.3 the variable formalreg2 was dropped and replaced with informal_derived.
Changes in version 3.3.1
PALMSv3.3 was released in 2019 but in July 2023 we discovered an error in the ceweight1 and bracketweight variables for 1993.
Scope
The dataset includes data on the South African labour market. Some household variables, such as dwelling type and access to services, as well as access to government social grants, are included from the survey rounds where this data was collected.
| Topic |
|---|
| Employment |
| income |
| labour markets |
| social grants. |
Coverage
The surveys used to construct PALMS had national coverage
The lowest level of geographic aggregation in PALMS is province.
The target population is all households. Coverage of workers' hostels, convents/monasteries, as well as institutions such as old age homes, hospitals, prisons and military barracks varied across the surveys. Data users will need to consult the individual OHS, LFS and QLFS datasets for information on the universe for each survey.
Producers and sponsors
| Name | Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Andrew Kerr | University of Cape Town |
| David Lam | University of Michigan |
| Martin Wittenberg | University of Cape Town |
| Name | Role |
|---|---|
| Statistics South Africa | Producer of original datasets used to create the PALMS dataset |
Sampling
The PALMS weights are discussed in the Guide to version 4 of the Post-Apartheid Labour Market Series by Andrew Kerr and Martin Wittenberg
Data Collection
| Start | End |
|---|---|
| 1993 | 2025 |
- Other
The source data for PALMS is anonymised publicly available data from UCT and Statistics South Africa
The dataset consists of microdata from the 1993 Project for Statistics on Living Standards and Development conducted by SALDRU at UCT, and 92 household surveys conducted by Statistics South Africa. The Statistics South Africa data includes data from the October Household Surveys 1994-1999, the bi-annual Labour Force Surveys 2000-2007 (including the smaller LFS pilot survey from February 2000) and the Quarterly Labour Force Surveys 2008-2025.
Data Access
| Name | Affiliation | URL | |
|---|---|---|---|
| DataFirst | University of Cape Town | http://support.data1st.org | support@data1st.org |
Public access data for use under a Creative Commons CC-BY (Attribution-only) License
Kerr, A. Lam, D. and M. Wittenberg. Post-Apartheid Labour Market Series 1993-2025 [dataset]. Version 4. Cape Town: DataFirst [producer and distributor], 2025. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25828/gtr1-8r20
Contacts
| Name | Affiliation | URL | |
|---|---|---|---|
| DataFirst Helpdesk | University of Cape Town | support@data1st.org | http://support.data1st.org/ |
Metadata production
| Name | Affiliation | Role |
|---|---|---|
| DataFirst | University of Cape Town | Metadata Producer |
2025-11-24
Metadata version
Version 8