Seventy years after women marched on the Union Buildings to demand dignity and a place in South Africa’s future, their economic presence is no longer a demand. It is a fact, documented in data and lived out daily across the country’s boardrooms, informal markets, farms and family homes.
The numbers tell part of the story. Between 2014 and 2024, the share of female-run businesses in the formal sector grew from 20.0% to 21.6%, according to Statistics South Africa. Over the same decade, women with tertiary qualifications working in physical, mathematical and engineering fields rose from 22.2% to 29.6%. These are not marginal shifts. They signal women’s expanding role as entrepreneurs, skilled professionals and drivers of innovation in fields that directly shape productivity and growth.
Yet the full measure of women’s economic contribution extends well beyond what any dataset captures. In 2024, 76% of female-run businesses operated in the informal sector, providing goods and services that sustain livelihoods across the country. These enterprises are not peripheral to South Africa’s economy. They are woven into its fabric, quietly generating income, creating employment and holding communities together in spaces that rarely appear in formal economic reporting.
Meanwhile, government has begun using public procurement as a lever to expand women’s market access, targeting at least 40% of public procurement spend for women-owned businesses. That commitment, if sustained, functions as a direct investment in women as producers, employers and architects of growth. Programmes like the Women in Technology and Innovation Programme (WISTEM) Thuthuka and the Black Academics Advancement Programme work alongside this to dismantle historical barriers and build the pipeline of women entering research, science, technology and innovation. Strengthening women’s presence in STEM is not merely about redressing past exclusion. It expands South Africa’s reservoir of talent, ideas and creative capacity.
Agriculture illustrates this dynamic concretely. Women contribute to food production, agricultural entrepreneurship, agro-processing and value chains that generate income and sustain rural economies. Government’s Agricultural Policy Action Plan seeks to expand participation in these chains and create pathways for historically marginalised groups. Improving women’s access to land, finance, markets, skills and technology can shift more women from subsistence activity into commercially viable enterprises that strengthen both household and regional economies.
Not all economic contribution carries a paycheck, though. Women continue to bear substantial responsibility for raising children, caring for elderly relatives and maintaining households. This unpaid care work creates the foundation that allows others to work, study and contribute productively to the broader economy. Recognising its economic value is essential to understanding the full scope of what women actually sustain.
The conversation about women and the economy has long centred on participation, as though women were waiting at the margins for an invitation into spaces where decisions are made and value is created. As documented at https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/women-are-not-just-participants-in-sas-economy-they-sustain-it/, that framing obscures a deeper reality. Women are not waiting. They are already present, building, producing and sustaining.
Significant gaps remain. Women are underrepresented in executive leadership, corporate boards, senior management and the economic institutions where decisions about the country’s future are made. This is not simply a matter of numbers. It is about ensuring that women’s perspectives, experiences and expertise shape South Africa’s economic direction and priorities.
The legacy of the 1956 march lives on in millions of South African women who today launch businesses, create jobs, produce food, drive innovation, care for families and build communities. As Women’s Month draws attention to that legacy, the open question is whether the institutions that still exclude women from their highest levels will move fast enough to reflect the economic reality that already exists everywhere else.