The labour market and household income inequality in South Africa: existing evidence and new panel data

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The labour market and household income inequality in South Africa: existing evidence and new panel data

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Murray Leibbrandt (School of Economics, University of Cape Town, S. Africa)
Ingrid Woolard (Department of Economics, University of Port Elizabeth, S. Africa)

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Abstract

South Africa's very high Gini coefficient has always served as the starkest indicator of the country's extreme inequality. The racial legacy has always been highlighted in explaining this inequality. This paper presents evidence that between race contributions to inequality have declined from the early 1970s to the mid 1990s. However, they are still considerably higher than comparative international figures. The racially rigged labour market has always been assumed to operate as the key force underlying these changing inequality patterns and the paper presents findings for more formal decompositions of the linkage between the labour market and household inequality. This work confirms the dominance of the labour market in driving total South African, African and even KwaZulu-Natal inequality. However, the contribution of wage income is uneven across these different levels of aggregation and across time; suggesting complex patterns of inequality generation. The following lengthy section of the paper uses a panel data set to measure and explain the mobility patterns of a sample of African households in Kwazulu-Natal. It is found that there was less income mobility at the top and the bottom of the distribution than in the middle and overall there was an increase in income differentiation. Simple mobility profiling and more complex modelling confirm the importance of labour market changes in influencing movement of real adult equivalent income of households as well as mobility across deciles, across poverty lines. Demographic changes are also seen to be very important. The paper concludes with a summary and some suggestions for further work. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Publisher Info
Article provided by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. in its journal Journal of International Development.

Volume (Year): 13 (2001)
Issue (Month): 6 ()
Pages: 671-689
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Handle: RePEc:wly:jintdv:v:13:y:2001:i:6:p:671-689

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

Ingrid Woolard & Murray Leibbrandt, 1999. "Household Incomes, Poverty and Inequality in a Multivariate Framework," Working Papers 9691, University of Cape Town, Development Policy Research Unit. [Downloadable!]
H. Bhorat & J. Hodge, 1999. "Decomposing Shifts in Labour Demand in South Africa," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 67(3), pages 155-168, 09. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
Klasen, Stephan & Woolard, Ingrid, 2000. "Surviving Unemployment without State Support: Unemployment and Household Formation in South Africa," IZA Discussion Papers 237, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
Other versions:
- Klasen, Stephan & Woolard, Ingrid, 2001. "Surviving Unemployment without State Support: Unemployment and Household Formation in South Africa," CESifo Working Paper Series CESifo Working Paper No. , CESifo Group Munich. [Downloadable!]
- Stephan Klasen & Ingrid Woolard, 2009. "Surviving Unemployment Without State Support: Unemployment and Household Formation in South Africa," Journal of African Economies, Oxford University Press, vol. 18(1), pages 1-51, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
Lam, David & Levison, Deborah, 1991. "Declining inequality in schooling in Brazil and its effects on inequality in earnings," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(1-2), pages 199-225, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
Other versions:
- Levison, D. & Lam, D., 1990. "Declining Inequality In Schooling In Brazil And Its Effects On Inequality In Earning," Papers 618, Yale - Economic Growth Center.
Leibbrandt, Murray & Woolard, Christopher & Woolard, Ingrid, 2000. "The Contribution of Income Components to Income Inequality in the Rural Former Homelands of South Africa: A Decomposable Gini Analysis," Journal of African Economies, Oxford University Press, vol. 9(1), pages 79-99, March.

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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

Tregenna, F., 2009. "The Relationship Between Unemployment and Earnings Inequality in South Africa," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0907, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge. [Downloadable!]
Heshmati, Almas, 2004. "Continental and Sub-Continental Income Inequality," IZA Discussion Papers 1271, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
Other versions:
- Almas Heshmati, 2006. "Continental And Sub-Continental Income Inequality," Icfai University Journal of Applied Economics, Icfai Press, vol. 0(1), pages 7-52, January.
Johannes G. Hoogeveen & Berk Özler, 2005. "Not Separate, Not Equal: Poverty and Inequality in Post-Apartheid South Africa," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series wp739, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan Stephen M. Ross Business School. [Downloadable!]
Other versions:
- Ozler, Berk, 2007. "Not Separate, Not Equal: Poverty and Inequality in Post-apartheid South Africa," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 55(3), pages 487-529, April.
- Berk Özler, 2007. "Not Separate, Not Equal: Poverty and Inequality in Post-apartheid South Africa," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 55, pages 487-529. [Downloadable!]
Heshmati, Almas, 2004. "Data Issues and Databases Used in Analysis of Growth, Poverty and Economic Inequality," IZA Discussion Papers 1263, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
Heshmati, Almas, 2004. "Regional Income Inequality in Selected Large Countries," IZA Discussion Papers 1307, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]

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