Table 5. Key characteristics of South African wage workers by level of job formality.

	Low	Medium	High	Total
Female	51.05% (1.76)	39.72%*** (2.56)	43.99%* (2.49)	46.36% (1.26)
Mean years of age	36.79 (0.39)	38.64* (0.56)	40.71*** (0.45)	38.31 (0.27)
Mean years of education	8.72 (0.14)	10.32*** (0.17)	11.86*** (0.15)	9.96 (0.10)
Permanent	33.58% (1.64)	78.78%*** (2.06)	95.71%*** (0.91)	61.52% (1.22)
Elementary work	33.30% (1.61)	11.60%*** (1.65)	7.41%*** (1.26)	20.95% (0.98)
Private household	18.85% (1.37)	2.69%*** (0.94)	0.49%*** (0.32)	9.89% (0.74)
Professionals	7.41% (0.97)	13.49%** (1.63)	27.92%*** (2.26)	14.47% (0.90)
Weighted N	3 084 040	1 561 867	1 732 226	6 378 133

Note: The data are weighted. Standard errors in parenthesis. Differences from the low formality group are statistically significant at: ***P<0.01; **P<0.05; *P<0.10.

Source: Authors’ calculations from NIDS (2008).