Living, not just surviving: The politics of refusing low-wage jobs in urban South Africa

Abstract

This paper explores why young Black South African men refuse low-wage jobs in a time of mass joblessness. Drawing on in-depth qualitative data from an informal settlement on the outskirts of Johannesburg, the paper examines the work histories and social aspirations that underpin young men’s decision to voluntarily quit low-wage employment. This inquiry is animated by a long history of urban young men rejecting the wage relation in favour of alternative livelihoods. It shows that the refusal of low-wage jobs is sustained by other forms of inequality and is closely entangled with race, gender and citizenship. The paper argues that the refusal of low-wage jobs is at once a critique of precariousness and racialized inequality, and a political demand for social and economic inclusion. In taking this demand seriously, the paper maintains that voluntary quitting is a relatively unrecognized form of worker resistance, with implications for how we understand labour market volatility, and the place of wage labour in South Africa’s policy debates and politics.