South Africa/datacard_Jobs-and-Development.md

# Datacard for South Africa Jobs And Development Indicators (1960-2024)

This dataset contains a time-series of key jobs and development indicators for South Africa, spanning from 1960 to 2024. The data has been aggregated from multiple sources, cleaned, and processed into a single, analysis-ready CSV file.

The raw data was sourced from **The World Bank** data portal. The original files were provided in Excel (.xls) format.

- **Temporal Coverage**: 1960-2024
- **Geographic Coverage**: South Africa
- **Format**: Comma-Separated Values (CSV)

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## Data Points (Features)

The dataset includes the following jobs and development indicators, with 'Year' serving as the primary date column:

1. `employment_to_population_ratio_15_total_modeled_ilo_estimate_`: Employment to population ratio, 15+, total (%) (modeled ILO estimate)
2. `gdp_per_person_employed_constant_2021_ppp_`: GDP per person employed (constant 2021 PPP $)
3. `labor_force_participation_rate_total_of_total_population_ages_15_modeled_ilo_estimate_`: Labor force participation rate, total (% of total population ages 15+) (modeled ILO estimate)

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## Data Preparation & Missing Data Handling

The raw data was processed using a Python script to transform it into a clean, structured format. The key steps were:

1.  **Filtering**: The data was filtered to include only records for 'South Africa'.
2.  **Reshaping**: The original wide-format data (years as columns) was melted into a long format.
3.  **Merging**: Data from all indicator files was merged into a single DataFrame on 'Year'.
4.  **Handling Missing Data**: Missing values (`NaN`) were filled using a two-step strategy: linear interpolation followed by a back-fill to handle any remaining gaps at the start of the series.