TEBA Mine Recruiting¶
District and station-level mine labor recruiting data from The Employment Bureau of Africa (TEBA, formerly NRC — Native Recruiting Corporation).
Key Files¶
| File | Description |
|---|---|
district_recruiting_panel.csv |
District-year recruiting (1,674 obs, 1973-1978) |
teba_panel_v6.csv |
Latest consolidated panel |
station_district_crosswalk_v4.csv |
TEBA station to magisterial district mapping |
nrc_recruits_by_office_1952_1985.csv |
Recruiting by office, long series |
regional_office_recruiting_1952_1982.csv |
Regional office aggregates |
district_station_proximity.csv |
Distance-based station assignments |
UJ Archive Books¶
uj_books_extracted/ — 35 CSVs (~21,900 rows) extracted from the NRC/WNLA annual-report volumes (Books 2–14, 1957–1969) via the Claude Vision API. Extends recruiting data back to the 1950s. Extraction is complete across all years 1957–1969.
| Year | CSVs | Rows | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1957 | 1 | 503 | WNLA |
| 1959 | 3 | 1,996 | WNLA + NRC (Parts 1–2) |
| 1960 | 2 | 813 | WNLA + NRC |
| 1961 | 2 | 952 | WNLA + NRC |
| 1962 | 10 | 5,328 | WNLA (4 parts) + NRC (6 parts) |
| 1963 | 2 | 360 | WNLA + NRC |
| 1964 | 2 | 416 | WNLA + NRC |
| 1965 | 6 | 6,150 | WNLA (2 parts) + NRC (4 parts) |
| 1966 | 2 | 1,356 | WNLA + NRC |
| 1967 | 2 | 1,106 | WNLA + NRC |
| 1968 | 2 | 2,556 | WNLA (Parts 1–2) |
| 1969 | 1 | 396 | WNLA |
| Total | 35 | 21,932 | Books 2–14 |
The UJ annual-report extraction is complete; the 16 volumes that were mid-batch in March 2026 (the 1965 and 1968 series and the remaining 1959/1961/1962/1967 parts) have since been processed.
NRC Wage Files (NEW 2026-03-29)¶
nrc_wages_extracted/ — 9 files containing wage schedules from NRC board memoranda (1973-1976). Extracted via the Gemini Vision API. Key source for understanding wage changes during the 1974 crisis.
Coverage¶
- Period: 1957-1985 (1957-1969 from UJ books, 1973-1985 from existing panel)
- Geography: Magisterial district, TEBA station, and regional office level
- Content: Number of recruits, by origin district/region, over time
Context¶
TEBA was the centralized recruiting arm of the South African mining industry. Under the Native Labour Regulation Act of 1911, districts were classified as "open" (where mine recruiting was permitted) or "closed" (where white farmers had successfully lobbied to restrict recruiting to protect their labor supply).
The 1974 mine labor crisis — triggered by the gold price boom and the collapse of Mozambican and Malawian labor supply — forced the opening of previously closed districts. This creates the treatment variation for the 1974 shock paper (Boone & Wilse-Samson), though the district-level DiD is specification-sensitive (significant in pooled OLS, null in TWFE). The robust national finding is the shock itself: Black mine wages roughly tripled, and the foreign share of the gold-mine workforce fell from about 80% before the crisis to roughly 40% by the early 1980s as domestic workers replaced foreign migrants. The TEBA open/closed geography also feeds the book's electoral analysis; the flagship political result, however, is the Eiselen-Line divergence — constituencies east of the line shifted about +14.2 percentage points toward right-wing parties by 1987 relative to those west of it (exact-line event study, R10 / Figure A.2, p < 0.001). (An earlier +6.3pp figure, from a broader and since-superseded specification, has been retired.)
Provenance¶
- Source: TEBA/NRC board memoranda, annual reports, station records
- Key document: NRC File B1061 Pad 2 (1974 memo classifying district potential)
- Source PDFs:
raw_archives/06_mining/teba_archive/ - Digitization status: UJ books complete (35 CSVs, 1957–1969); NRC wage files complete (9 files); board memoranda assessed