IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/unu/wpaper/wp-2014-147.html

South Africa's Emerging Black Middle Class: A Harbinger of Political Change?

Author

Listed:
  • Robert Mattes

Abstract

South Africa has seen a significant increase in the size of the black middle class in the post-apartheid period, but the attitudinal consequences of indicators of the middle class, as of 2011, are inconsistent and modest in size. While members of the middle class are no more likely to hold democratic values than other black South Africans, they are more likely to want government to secure higher order, rather than basic, survival needs.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert Mattes, 2014. "South Africa's Emerging Black Middle Class: A Harbinger of Political Change?," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2014-147, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    • Handle: RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2014-147
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.wider.unu.edu/sites/default/files/wp2014-147.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:cup:apsrev:v:53:y:1959:i:01:p:69-105_00 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Justin Visagie & Dorrit Posel, 2013. "A reconsideration of what and who is middle class in South Africa," Development Southern Africa, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(2), pages 149-167, June.
    3. Abhijit V. Banerjee & Esther Duflo, 2008. "What Is Middle Class about the Middle Classes around the World?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 22(2), pages 3-28, Spring.
    4. Przeworski,Adam & Alvarez,Michael E. & Cheibub,Jose Antonio & Limongi,Fernando, 2000. "Democracy and Development," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521793797.
    5. Murray Leibbrandt & Ingrid Woolard & Arden Finn & Jonathan Argent, 2010. "Trends in South African Income Distribution and Poverty since the Fall of Apartheid," OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers 101, OECD Publishing.
    6. Servaas van der Berg & Megan Louw & Leon du Toit, 2009. "Poverty trends since the transition: What we know," Working Papers 19/2009, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
    7. Przeworski,Adam & Alvarez,Michael E. & Cheibub,Jose Antonio & Limongi,Fernando, 2000. "Democracy and Development," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521790321.
    8. David L. Epstein & Robert Bates & Jack Goldstone & Ida Kristensen & Sharyn O'Halloran, 2006. "Democratic Transitions," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(3), pages 551-569, July.
      • David Epstein & Robert H. Bates & Jack Goldstone & Ida Kristensen & Sharyn O'Halloran, 2004. "Democratic Transitions," CID Working Papers 101, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    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. Marlin Hoffman & Catherina Schenck, 2020. "The value chain and activities of polyethylene terephthalate plastics in the South African waste economy," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 35(5), pages 523-535, August.
    2. Vishnu Padayachee, 2019. "Can progressive macroeconomic policy address growth and employment while reducing inequality in South Africa?," The Economic and Labour Relations Review, , vol. 30(1), pages 3-21, March.

    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. Mattes, Robert, 2014. "South Africa’s Emerging Black Middle Class: A Harbinger of Political Change?," WIDER Working Paper Series 147, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    2. Markus Brückner & Antonio Ciccone, 2011. "Rain and the Democratic Window of Opportunity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 79(3), pages 923-947, May.
    3. Anke Hoeffler & Mr. Robert H. Bates & Ms. Ghada Fayad, 2012. "Income and Democracy: Lipset's Law Revisited," IMF Working Papers 2012/295, International Monetary Fund.
    4. Papaioannou, Elias & Siourounis, Gregorios, 2008. "Economic and social factors driving the third wave of democratization," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 365-387, September.
    5. Dahlum, Sirianne & Knutsen, Carl Henrik, 2017. "Do Democracies Provide Better Education? Revisiting the Democracy–Human Capital Link," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 186-199.
    6. Martin Gassebner & Michael J. Lamla & James Raymond Vreeland, 2013. "Extreme Bounds of Democracy," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 57(2), pages 171-197, April.
    7. Simone Dietrich & Joseph Wright, 2012. "Foreign Aid and Democratic Development in Africa," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2012-020, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    8. Yue, Jiahua & Zhou, Shangsi, 2018. "Democracy’s comparative advantage: Evidence from aggregated trade data, 1962–2010," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 27-40.
    9. Lin, Faqin & Sim, Nicholas C.S., 2014. "Baltic Dry Index and the democratic window of opportunity," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 143-159.
    10. Nizar Becheikh, 2021. "Political stability and economic growth in developing economies: lessons from Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt ten years after the Arab Spring," Insights into Regional Development, VsI Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Center, vol. 3(2), pages 229-251, June.
    11. John A. Doces & Christopher S. P. Magee, 2015. "Trade and Democracy: A Factor-Based Approach," International Interactions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(2), pages 407-425, March.
    12. Nedra Baklouti & Younes Boujelbene, 2018. "The Nexus Between Democracy and Economic Growth: Evidence from Dynamic Simultaneous-Equations Models," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 9(3), pages 980-998, September.
    13. Georgy Egorov & Sergei Guriev & Konstantin Sonin, 2006. "Media Freedom, Bureaucratic Incentives, and the Resource Curse," Working Papers w0063, Center for Economic and Financial Research (CEFIR), revised Jun 2006.
    14. Marta Guerriero, 2019. "Democracy and the Labor Share of Income: A Cross-Country Analysis," ADB Institute Series on Development Economics, in: Gary Fields & Saumik Paul (ed.), Labor Income Share in Asia, chapter 0, pages 151-176, Springer.
    15. Cervellati, Matteo & Fortunato, Piergiuseppe & Sunde, Uwe, 2011. "Democratization and Civil Liberties: The Role of Violence During the Transition," Economics Working Paper Series 1108, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science.
    16. Cervellati, Matteo & Fortunato, Piergiuseppe & Sunde, Uwe, 2014. "Violence during democratization and the quality of democratic institutions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 226-247.
    17. Freund, Caroline & Jaud, Melise, 2013. "Regime Change, Democracy and Growth," CEPR Discussion Papers 9282, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    18. Espen Geelmuyden Rød & Carl Henrik Knutsen & Håvard Hegre, 2020. "The determinants of democracy: a sensitivity analysis," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 185(1), pages 87-111, October.
    19. Daniel Treisman, 2011. "Income, Democracy, and the Cunning of Reason," NBER Working Papers 17132, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Dmitry Ryvkin & Anastasia Semykina, 2017. "An experimental study of democracy breakdown, income and inequality," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 20(2), pages 420-447, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:unu:wpaper:wp-2014-147. 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: Siméon Rapin (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/widerfi.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.