As the Mining Indaba concludes this week, priority should be given to creating more and sustainable jobs but also taking care of those who are and have been unemployed because of mine closures in recent years.
Our legacy and resultant spatial and industrial geography has unfortunately birthed ghost town(ships) primarily due to the lack of economic opportunities.
The consequences are dire for individuals, households and broader society. The deliberations at the Mining Indaba should succeed to avert a further societal crisis of survival as sustainability and charting a more responsible way forward for the sector and its workers is key.
The broader role that the presence and absence of economic empowerment plays is echoed in my research work in the clothing, textile, and footwear industry and townships in KwaZulu-Natal, where unemployment has increased because of factory closures.
In these township spaces, and many townships with similar closures and workforce reductions, unemployment and poverty remains undeniably high. Unsurprising then, economic emancipation for the majority has been elusive, with evidence of widening inequalities.
There are significant social outcomes that quantitative economic data and labour market trends are unable to reveal, yet they have a profound impact on the functioning of society and the economy. In the context of high unemployment, poverty and rising income inequalities.
In a historically patriarchal industry the domino effect of the above often hits hardest at the women of the affected communities, leaving them to not only pick up the proverbial pieces but also to cope with the pressures and challenges that come with filling the economic gap.
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Employment being the pivotal point that tips this particular scale, with the added weight of all forms of patriarchal perception, leads to a role reversal of sorts that too often manifests in abuse on multiple levels.
This process of "feminization of survival", where the responsibility and burden of survival is placed on women, has had adverse social consequences for women and men, both for different reasons though unemployment for most women has not precipitated a crisis of identity in the way that it has for men.
Women have started small businesses or taken on jobs in the informal economy. They are accessing income from the state and the mining sector is increasingly becoming more accessible to women.
The crisis of unemployment and changing economic conditions have implications for social relations (gender and generational) in households and communities. Gendered identities, experiences and subjectivities are changing.
Change proving to be a necessity and a constant requirement for growth should therefore always match sustained profitability with investment in building economically sustainable communities.
Professor Sarah Mosoetsa is an Associate Researcher in the Society, Work and Development Institute and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology, the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.