Employment experiences of post graduate students in KwaZulu-Natal: An intersection of qualifications and employability in the labor market

South Africa by international standards has a poor public healthcare system. There has been a substantial increase in the literature on reforms such as austerity measures to improve healthcare service delivery in government health institutions. The global crisis of 2008/2009 forced the government to implement cost-cutting measures to reduce public expenditure and resolve budgetary pressures, including in the health sector. This paper adopted a mixed method to investigate the impact of staffing moratoria in the delivery of healthcare services in the Department of Health. 177 survey questionnaires were distributed to healthcare workers and 9 key informants were interviewed regarding staffing moratoria. Quantitative data was analysed using descriptive statistics, Chi-square tests of association and the Cramer’s V test whilst qualitative data was analysed thematically. The results showed that staffing moratoria resulted in severe staff shortages and the deterioration of working conditions as a result of excessive working hours, job enlargement, and limited personal development opportunities. Staffing moratoria also promoted distrust between employees and management that furthered job dissatisfaction at the workplace. The paper concludes that staffing moratoria should be supported by a decentralised multi-dimensional approach in planning and implementation to ensure a collective consultative process involving all relevant stakeholders. Keywords: Healthcare; Service delivery; Staffing moratoria; Budgetary pressures; Job enlargement

Women continue to play critical roles in our society both formally and informally. One such role; especially in the private space of the home, is the expectation placed on a woman to prepare food. Such expectations have generated embedded meanings for Zulu women, who are the focus of this study. In this study five men in courtship relationships with women were interviewed. We show through in-depth interviews of 20 women (10 working and 10 non-working), five men and two focus groups how contemporary Zulu women reproduce, resist and rebel against gender cultural constructions in the context of food preparation for men during dating and courtship. We analyse the women’s behaviour using Hofstede’s ‘uncertainty avoidance index’ and ‘indulgence versus self-restraint’ concepts to explain the women’s positioning and struggle with two forms of identity. In 1988 Mohanty warned against the danger of Western feminism trapping the African woman into a fixed subordinated identity. This current research shows how African women are resisting a cultural requirement and how they are trapped by it as they try to exercise agency. The findings show that Zulu women want to apply the current knowledge of women’s empowerment but find it difficult because they cannot divorce themselves from their cultural context; they feel that the discourses of women’s empowerment (especially pertaining to the area of food preparation during dating and courtship) is not practical in their context. The findings revealed through a patriarchal lens how men in such relationships positioned themselves at privilege to benefit from cultural gender expectations of women, and how through the negotiating power of the women they are still able to give away some power.