The aim of this dissertation is measuring economic and social mobility in South Africa. The work from this thesis shows that various problems with survey responses can produce misleading impressions of the South African labour market and of income dynamics. This highlights the importance of measuring variables of interest accurately and to carefully consider the ways in which unreliable responses can bias the results of conventional estimators. It will be demonstrated that even the most appropriate estimator and identification strategy can fail to yield unbiased estimates if important measurement issues are ignored. To address these shortcomings this thesis applies and adapts new approaches to remedy well-known survey data reliability concerns.