Stephanié Rossouw

Measuring the Vulnerability of Subnational Regions in South Africa

A small but growing literature has been concerned about the economic (and environmental) vulnerability on the level of countries. Less attention is paid to the economic vulnerability of different regions within countries. By focusing on the vulnerability of subnational regions, this paper contributes to the small literature on the “vulnerability of place”. They authors see the vulnerability of place as being due to vulnerability in various domains, such as economic vulnerability, vulnerability of environment, and governance, demographic and health fragilities. They use a subnational data set on 354 magisterial districts from South Africa, recognize the potential relevance of measuring vulnerability on a subnational level, and construct a Local Vulnerability Index for the various districts. They condition this index on district per capita income and term this a Vulnerability Intervention Index, interpreting this as an indicator of where higher income per capita, often seen in the literature as a measure of resilience, will in itself be unlikely to reduce vulnerability.

Well-being of Women in New Zealand: The Changing Landscape

As the first country to give women the right to vote (in 1893), New Zealand (NZ) has often been viewed as a leader in the global movement towards gender equality. This paper aims to assess trends in overall well-being for NZ women, by pulling together a range of statistical indicators across five key facets of well-being: demographic and family changes, education, employment, health, and crime and violence. From our analysis, two contrasting pictures emerge. The first is that NZ women are clearly making up ground in respect of their education, participation in the labour force (less so in terms of wage equality), and overall health outcomes (barring mental health issues, such as depression). In the second, however, NZ women are trailing behind their other developed nation counterparts when one considers crime and violence, both committed against and by them.