Version Notes
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.
