IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ldr/cssrwp/075.html

Income inequality after apartheid

Author

Listed:
  • Jeremy Seekings
  • Murray Leibbrandt

    (SALDRU, School of Economics, University of Cape Town)

  • Nicoli Nattrass

Abstract

This paper investigates changes in and patterns of income inequality in South Africa during the post-apartheid period 1994 to 2004. While findings show a rapidly growing high-income African population (a trend that began before 1994 and continued thereafter) as well as rising real wages for workers in formal employment, overall levels of income inequality have not been declining This is due to rising unemployment and a small informal sector that have therefore left unchanged South Africa's high level of income inequality. If anything, overall inequality has worsened. Inter-racial inequality has decreased while intra-racial inequality has increased. Opportunities have improved for some African people in South Africa, but not for all: a lack of human and social capital leaves many with little chance of rising out of poverty; AIDS-related mortality and morbidity are likely to exacerbate stratification and further increase inequality.

Suggested Citation

  • Jeremy Seekings & Murray Leibbrandt & Nicoli Nattrass, 2004. "Income inequality after apartheid," SALDRU/CSSR Working Papers 075, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town.
    • Handle: RePEc:ldr:cssrwp:075
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.opensaldru.uct.ac.za/handle/11090/643
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. H. Bhorat, 1999. "The October Household Survey, Unemployment and the Informal Sector: A Note," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 67(2), pages 143-146, June.
    2. Aliber, Michael, 2003. "Chronic Poverty in South Africa: Incidence, Causes and Policies," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 473-490, March.
    3. Haroon Bhorat, 2003. "The Post-Apartheid Challenge: Labour Demand Trends in the South African Labour Market, 1995-1999," Working Papers 03082, University of Cape Town, Development Policy Research Unit.
    4. 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, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Barbara Ziyane & Sodiq Arogundade & Kwame Osei-Assibey, 2024. "Impact of township economic revitalisation programme on entrepreneurship development and innovation in Gauteng, South Africa," International Journal of Business Ecosystem & Strategy (2687-2293), Bussecon International Academy, vol. 6(5), pages 239-253, October.
    2. Oppel, Annalena, 2021. "Normalizing necessity? Support networks and racial inequality in Namibia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    3. Muna Shifa & Rejoice Mabhena & Vimal Ranchhod & Murray Leibbrandt, 2023. "An assessment of inequality estimates for the case of South Africa," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2023-90, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    4. Hélène Maisonnave & Bernard Decaluwe & Margaret Chitiga, 2016. "Does South African Affirmative Action Policy Reduce Poverty? A CGE Analysis," Poverty & Public Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 8(3), pages 212-227, September.
    5. Annalena Oppel, 2021. "Exploring economic support networks amidst racial inequality in Namibia," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2021-102, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Haroon Bhorat, 2003. "The Post-Apartheid Challenge: Labour Demand Trends in the South African Labour Market, 1995-1999," Working Papers 03082, University of Cape Town, Development Policy Research Unit.
    2. Frederick C.v.N. Fourie, 2011. "The South African unemployment debate: three worlds, three discourses?," SALDRU Working Papers 63, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town.
    3. repec:rza:wpaper:46 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Bhorat, Haroon & Goga, Sumayya & Stanwix, Benjamin, 2014. "Skills-biased labour demand and the pursuit of inclusive growth in South Africa," WIDER Working Paper Series 130, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    5. Reza C. Daniels, 2012. "A Framework for Investigating Micro Data Quality, with Application to South African Labour Market Household Surveys," SALDRU Working Papers 90, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town.
    6. Geeta G. Kingdon & John B. Knight, 2000. "Are searching and non-searching unemployment distinct states when unemployment is high? The case of South Africa," CSAE Working Paper Series 2000-02, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    7. Lumengo Bonga‐bonga, 2009. "The South African Aggregate Production Function: Estimation Of The Constant Elasticity Of Substitution Function," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 77(2), pages 332-349, June.
    8. Mich Brookes & Timothy Hinks, 2004. "The Racial Employment Gap In South Africa," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 72(3), pages 573-580, September.
    9. Baiyegunhi, L.J.S. & Fraser, Gavin C.G., 2010. "Determinants of Household Poverty Dynamics in Rural Regions of the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa," 2010 AAAE Third Conference/AEASA 48th Conference, September 19-23, 2010, Cape Town, South Africa 97078, African Association of Agricultural Economists (AAAE).
    10. Santos Bila & Mduduzi Biyase, 2022. "Determinants of Subjective Poverty in Rural and Urban Areas of South Africa," Economics Working Papers edwrg-02-2022, College of Business and Economics, University of Johannesburg, South Africa, revised 2022.
    11. Rulof Burger & Ingrid Woolard, 2005. "The State of the Labour Market in South Africa after the First Decade of Democracy," SALDRU/CSSR Working Papers 133, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town.
    12. JW Fedderke & Martine Mariotti, 2002. "Changing Labour Market Conditions In South Africa," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 70(5), pages 830-864, June.
    13. Julian Quan & Junior Davis & Felicity Proctor, 2008. "Rural Development from a Territorial Perspective : Lessons and Potential in Sub-Saharan Africa," World Bank Publications - Reports 9196, The World Bank Group.
    14. Kalie Pauw & Morne Oosthuizen & Carlene van der Westhuizen, 2006. "Graduate Unemployment in the Face of Skills Shortages: A Labour Market Paradox," Working Papers 06114, University of Cape Town, Development Policy Research Unit.
    15. Dieter von Fintel & Eldridge Moses, 2017. "Migration and gender in South Africa: following bright lights and the fortunes of others?," Working Papers 09/2017, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics, revised 2018.
    16. Daniel Neff, 2007. "Subjective Well-Being, Poverty and Ethnicity in South Africa: Insights from an Exploratory Analysis," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 80(2), pages 313-341, January.
    17. Hull, Elizabeth, 2014. "The Social Dynamics of Labor Shortage in South African Small-Scale Agriculture," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 451-460.
    18. Haroon Bhorat & Elne Jacobs & Carlene van der Westhuizen, 2013. "Do Industrial Disputes Reduce Employment? Evidence from South Africa," Working Papers 13161, University of Cape Town, Development Policy Research Unit.
    19. Tareq Sadeq & Michel Lubrano, 2018. "The Wall’s Impact in the Occupied West Bank: A Bayesian Approach to Poverty Dynamics Using Repeated Cross-Sections," Econometrics, MDPI, vol. 6(2), pages 1-24, May.
    20. David Crosoer & Murray Leibbrandt & Ingrid Woolard, 2005. "Asset-based versus money metric poverty indices in South Africa: An assessment using the Chronic Poverty Research Centre RSA 2002 Survey," SALDRU/CSSR Working Papers 109, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town.
    21. Katy Cornwell & Brett Inder, 2004. "Migration and Unemployment in South Africa: When Motivation Surpasses the Theory," Monash Econometrics and Business Statistics Working Papers 2/04, Monash University, Department of Econometrics and Business Statistics.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ldr:cssrwp:075. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Alison Siljeur (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sauctza.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.