Income Distribution and Poverty

South Africa: Post-Apartheid Poverty & Inequality

The question of how much change in social and economic conditions has followed the fall of apartheid in South Africa has provoked not also much debate but also significant research. A useful new report by Murray Leibbrant and others at the Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit in Cape Town provides both a summary of previous research and new analysis of household-level data between 1993 and 2008.

The unsurprising bottom line: inequality between races has decreased but is still large; within-race inequality has increased, and so has overall inequality; income poverty has diminished somewhat, particularly among the poorest, while services have increased but still fall far short of meeting the needs. And the decrease in income poverty is due primarily to child support grants and old age pensions, not to the labour market which continues to promote inequality.

The full OECD report, includes tables, footnotes, data annexes, and references, is available below.

Patrick Bond's article is an up-to-date evaluation of the South African economic and political scene and prospects for the left, after the World Cup and the recent public sector strikes. See http://www.africafiles.org/atissueezine.asp#art2