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COVID-19 has widened the gap between cities and rural areas

12 October 2020 | Story Andre Damons

Prof Ivan Turok, National Research Foundation research professor at the University of the Free State (UFS) and distinguished research fellow at the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC).

New evidence provides a detailed picture of the extraordinary economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. All regions lost about a fifth of their jobs between February-April, although the cities began to show signs of recovery with the easing of the lockdown to level 3. Half of all adults in rural areas were unemployed by June, compared with a third in the metros. So the crisis has amplified pre-existing disparities between cities and rural areas.

Prof Ivan Turok, National Research Foundation research professor at the University of the Free State (UFS) and distinguished research fellow at the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), and Dr Justin Visagie, a research specialist with the HSRC, analysed the impact of the crisis on different locations in a research report (Visagie & Turok 2020).

The main conclusion is that government responses need to be targeted more carefully to the distinctive challenges and opportunities of different places. A uniform, nationwide approach that treats places equally will not narrow (or even maintain) the gaps between them, just as the blanket lockdown reflex had adverse unintended consequences for jobs and livelihoods.

According to the authors, the crisis has also enlarged the chasm between suburbs, townships and informal settlements within cities. More than a third of all shack dwellers (36%) lost their jobs between February and April, compared with a quarter (24%) in the townships and one in seven (14%) in the suburbs. These effects are unprecedented.

Government grants have helped to ameliorate hardship in poor communities, but premature withdrawal of temporary relief schemes would be a serious setback for people who have come to rely on these resources following the collapse of jobs, such as unemployed men.

Before COVID-19

In February 2020, the proportion of adults in paid employment in the metros was 57%. In smaller cities and towns it was 46% and in rural areas 42%. This was a big gap, reflecting the relatively fragile local economies outside the large cities.
Similar differences existed within urban areas. The proportion of adults living in the suburbs who were in paid employment was 58%. In the townships it was 51% and in peri-urban areas it was 45%.

These employment disparities were partly offset by cash transfers to alleviate poverty among children and pensioners. Social grants were the main source of income for more than half of rural households and were also important in townships and informal settlements, although not to the same extent as in rural areas.

Despite the social grants, households in rural areas were still far more likely to run out of money to buy food than in the cities.

How did the lockdown affect jobs?

The hard lockdown haemorrhaged jobs and incomes everywhere. However, the effects were worse in some places than in others. Shack dwellers were particularly vulnerable to the level 5 lockdown and restrictions on informal enterprise. This magnified pre-existing divides between suburbs, townships and informal settlements within cities.
There appears to have been a slight recovery in the suburbs between April-June, mostly as a result of furloughed workers being brought back onto the payroll. Few new jobs were created. Other areas showed less signs of bouncing back.

Overall, the economic crisis has hit poor urban communities much harder than the suburbs, resulting in a rate of unemployment in June of 42-43% in townships and informal settlements compared with 24% in the suburbs. The collapse poses a massive challenge for the recovery, and requires the government to mobilise resources from the whole of society.

News Archive

Another boost for sport at the UFS

2005-10-13

A contract formalizing the appointment of Sports Plan (Pty) Ltd was signed by Prof Verschoor and Mr Morne du Plessis in the historic Main Building of the UFS Bloemfontein campus.

The University of the Free State (UFS) has officially appointed Sports Plan (Pty) Ltd, which has former Springbok rugby captain Morné du Plessis as managing director, to manage its Centre for Exercise and Sport Science Services (CESSS) on the Bloemfontein campus.

According to Prof Teuns Verschoor, Vice-Rector: Academic Operations, the appointment of Sports Plan (Pty) Ltd is another step in the implementation of the UFS’s wide-ranging sport strategy to improve sport facilities and elevate formerly marginalized sports such as soccer, hockey, netball, tennis etc.

Sports Plan (Pty) Ltd is the manager of the Sports Science Institute of South Africa and coordinates and manages the national basketball high-performance programme of SA Basketball, as well as the Boxing Academy on behalf of Boxing South Africa.

“It is also actively involved with the sports plans of several tertiary institutions like that of the University of Johannesburg and the University of Stellenbosch,” said Prof Verschoor.

“Sports Plan (Pty) Ltd was also appointed by the Ministry of Sport and Recreation to manage the allocation of sports codes to high-performance centres and to oversee the allocation of monies received from the National Lottery to these centres – this includes the CESSS at the UFS,” Prof Verschoor added.

In unfolding its national sports plan, the Ministry of Sport and Recreation has already identified the UFS-based CESSS as the high-performance testing centre for the national basketball teams whilst the national boxing teams are also earmarked to be trained at the UFS.

“We are glad to be associated with a company of this stature and look forward to work with them in the further development of sports at the UFS,” said Prof Verschoor.

According to Prof Verschoor, the CESSS will act as a centralised body that is responsible for the coordination and management of joint initiatives between professional service providers, research projects and KovsieSport.

“The centre will also coordinate and manage joint initiatives between various academic programmes in different academic subject fields such as sports medicine, bio kinetics, physiotherapy, dietetics, etc. ,” said Prof Verschoor.

These initiatives will help the UFS to become a centre and catalyst of sports development, to become internationally recognised in the field of exercise and sports science research and to become a centre for high quality sports performance enhancement.

Some of the objectives of the CESSS are:

To provide sports science services like to athletes, students, the general public and other stakeholders including certain national sport teams.
To provide the necessary teaching and training facilities and internship opportunities for UFS students in sports related fields of study will also be provided by the centre like human movement science.
To present skills-transfer programmes directed at the broader community like development of skills in various sporting codes.
To continue and extend the current chronic risk reversal programmes presented by the Department of Human Movement Science such as obesity management, cardiac rehabilitation and other lifestyle related conditions.

The centre was founded in 2003 and was until now managed by Dr Louis Holtzhausen, from Kovsie Health and a consultant, Dr Gary Vorster.

A contract formalizing the appointment of Sports Plan (Pty) Ltd was signed today by Prof Verschoor and Mr Morne du Plessis in the historic Main Building of the UFS Bloemfontein campus.

The manager of the centre appointed by Sports Plan (Pty) Ltd is Mr Charles Store, an alumnus of the UFS, previously employed at the Sports Science Institute in Cape Town and by the SANDF at 3 Military Hospital, Bloemfontein.

Media release
Issued by: Anton Fisher
Director: Strategic Communication
072-207-8334
12 October 2005

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