The politically correct naming of domestic workers helpers, without improving their wages, is a great travesty. And so, Code4SA, a local data gathering company, has created the Living Wage calculator, a tool to enable employees determine the real wage they should pay their employees.
Using multiple variables which can be adjusted to your liking, , aggregates a total monthly wage required for your domestic worker to support her household based on her family’s specific circumstances.
Some of these adjustable variables include: the number of dependants in the household; transport costs; healthcare; housing; education, and four others, all of which contribute to calculating a ‘fair wage’ for that household either per day, per week, or per month.
To create the tool, the Code4SA observed that there was a disconnect that there was a disconnect between how homeowners set their wages, and bare minimum needs of families on the ground.
Code4SA Director Adi Eyaln says: “The issue of domestic workers’ salaries is the elephant in the room in South Africa. There are around one million domestic workers in the country and approximately one million employers.
“When employers decide to hire, they usually ask their friends and neighbours about the ‘going rate’ and then base the salary on that figure.
“But, even though someone is willing to work for a low figure, is it a fair wage?
“We decided that a calculator allowing the employer to make their own assumptions about the cost of living would be a useful tool.”
Code for South Africa, a non-profit organisation created in 2013, is a company that aims to promote informed decision-making for social good through the use of data.
