South Africa ZAF
Tier 3 · Large Diversified Emerging
South Africa stands at 24.7 of 100 on the Optional Work Index, the point at which paid work becomes economically optional1.
Supply measures whether machines can do the work; demand measures whether people can afford to stop. The index is their geometric mean, computed by the same method used for every country.
24.7 / 100
0 · pre-automation baseline100 · work optional
29.1
Supply
can machines do the work
21.0
Demand
can people afford to stop
Data coverage high · 5/5 inputs from primary data (supply 3/3, demand 2/2)
Components
Five sub-indices, fixed weights within each side
Supply
Capacity for machines to do the work29.1
AI Capabilityweight 40%
36.1
Humanoid Roboticsweight 31%
8.9
Labor Market Shiftweight 29%
41.0
AI system progress toward human-level and beyond cognitive performance.
Demand
Capacity for people to stop working21.0
Economic Abundanceweight 60%
28.5
Wealth Distributionweight 40%
9.8
Whether the cost of necessities (healthcare, housing, food, transport, education) is falling enough that work is less required.
Data sources for ZAF
which series filled each input
ai_frontier— epoch globalai_adoption— wb wbrobot_density— wb ifrautomation_gap— derived wbunemployment— wb wbproductivity— wb wbjob_openings— wb proxycost_healthcare— wb wbcost_food— wb proxycost_housing— wb proxycost_transport— wb proxycost_education— wb wbbs_electricity— wb wbbs_water— wb wbbs_sanitation— wb wbbs_ict_affordability— none missingincome_floor— wb wbinequality— wb wblabor_income_share— none missing
Calculated 2026-07-17 15:32:56 UTC · version 3.1.0