I’m excited to share our research paper, “Making the Invisible Visible: The Transformative Value of Public Employment Programs in South Africa.”

South Africa faces one of the world's most severe unemployment crises. But unemployment is about far more than the absence of income: it can affect people’s ability to develop skills, participate in their communities, and maintain dignity and purpose.

In this paper, we draw on our fieldwork in South Africa, interviews with policymakers, researchers, activists, community organizations and PEP participants, individual participant stories, and an extensive review of academic and policy literature. With that, we identify five values created by public employment: economic, skills-development, psychological, social and community, and constitutional value.

One of the most meaningful parts of this research was hearing directly from people whose experiences illustrate what statistics often cannot. Their stories helped us consider what becomes invisible when policy is evaluated only through quantitative indicators, and why bringing lived experience into policymaking matters.

We couldn’t have done this research without our faculty advisor, Catherine Admay, J.D., the support of the Laidlaw Foundation, and the Hart Leadership Program at our home institution, Duke University.