IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wdi/papers/2005-739.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Not Separate, Not Equal: Poverty and Inequality in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Johannes G. Hoogeveen
  • Berk ??zler

Abstract

As South Africa conducts a review of the first ten years of its new democracy, the question remains as to whether the economic inequalities of the apartheid era are beginning to fade. Using new, comparable consumption aggregates for 1995 and 2000, this paper finds that real per capita household expenditures declined for those at the bottom end of the expenditure distribution during this period of low GDP growth. As a result, poverty, especially extreme poverty, increased. Inequality also increased, mainly due to a jump in inequality among the African population. Even among subgroups of the population that experienced healthy consumption growth, such as the Coloureds, the rate of poverty reduction was low because the distributional shifts were not pro-poor.

Suggested Citation

  • Johannes G. Hoogeveen & Berk ??zler, 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.
  • Handle: RePEc:wdi:papers:2005-739
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/40125/3/wp739.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:pri:rpdevs:deaton_tarozzi_prices_poverty is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Datt, Gaurav & Jolliffe, Dean, 2005. "Poverty in Egypt: Modeling and Policy Simulations," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 53(2), pages 327-346, January.
    3. Carter, Michael R. & May, Julian, 1999. "Poverty, livelihood and class in rural South Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 1-20, January.
    4. repec:dau:papers:123456789/1560 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Anne Case & Angus Deaton, 1999. "School Inputs and Educational Outcomes in South Africa," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 1047-1084.
    6. Case, Anne & Deaton, Angus, 1998. "Large Cash Transfers to the Elderly in South Africa," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(450), pages 1330-1361, September.
    7. Clive Bell & Shantayanan Devarajan & Hans Gersbach, 2003. "The long-run economic costs of AIDS : theory and an application to South Africa," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3152, The World Bank.
    8. Jed Friedman & James Levinsohn, 2002. "The Distributional Impacts of Indonesia's Financial Crisis on Household Welfare: A "Rapid Response" Methodology," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 16(3), pages 397-423, December.
    9. Oaxaca, Ronald, 1973. "Male-Female Wage Differentials in Urban Labor Markets," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 14(3), pages 693-709, October.
    10. Ravallion, Martin & Galasso, Emanuela & Lazo, Teodoro & Philipp, Ernesto, 2001. "Do workfare participants recover quickly from retrenchment?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2672, The World Bank.
    11. Kristin F. Butcher & Cecilia Elena Rouse, 2001. "Wage Effects of Unions and Industrial Councils in South Africa," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 54(2), pages 349-374, January.
    12. Mwabu, Germano & Schultz, T Paul, 1996. "Education Returns across Quantiles of the Wage Function: Alternative Explanations for Returns to Education by Race in South Africa," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(2), pages 335-339, May.
    13. Stephan Klasen & Ingrid Woolard, 2009. "Surviving Unemployment Without State Support: Unemployment and Household Formation in South Africa," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 18(1), pages 1-51, January.
    14. Kingdon, Geeta Gandhi & Knight, John, 2004. "Unemployment in South Africa: The Nature of the Beast," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 391-408, March.
    15. Deaton, A. & Zaidi, S., 1999. "Guidelines for Constructing Consumption Aggregates for Welfare Analysis," Papers 192, Princeton, Woodrow Wilson School - Development Studies.
    16. Servaas van der Berg & Ronelle Burger & Rulof Burger & Megan Louw & Derek Yu, 2005. "Trends in poverty and inequality since the political transition," Working Papers 01/2005, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
    17. repec:fth:oxesaf:99-12 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Alan S. Blinder, 1973. "Wage Discrimination: Reduced Form and Structural Estimates," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 8(4), pages 436-455.
    19. Sten Dieden, 2003. "Integration into the South African Core Economy: Household Level Covariates," SALDRU/CSSR Working Papers 054, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town.
    20. Hentschel, Jesko & Lanjouw, Jean Olson & Lanjouw, Peter & Poggi, Javier, 1998. "Combining census and survey data to study spatial dimensions of poverty," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1928, The World Bank.
    21. Ravallion, Martin & Chen, Shaohua, 2003. "Measuring pro-poor growth," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 78(1), pages 93-99, January.
    22. Angus Deaton & Salman Zaidi, 2002. "Guidelines for Constructing Consumption Aggregates for Welfare Analysis," World Bank Publications, The World Bank, number 14101, April.
    23. Carter, Michael R. & May, Julian, 2001. "One Kind of Freedom: Poverty Dynamics in Post-apartheid South Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 29(12), pages 1987-2006, December.
    24. repec:pri:rpdevs:deaton_tarozzi_prices_poverty.pdf is not listed on IDEAS
    25. van de Walle, Dominique & Gunewardena, Dileni, 2001. "Sources of ethnic inequality in Viet Nam," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 177-207, June.
    26. Ravallion, Martin & Wodon, Quentin, 1997. "Poor areas, or only poor people?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1798, The World Bank.
    27. Murray Leibbrandt & Ingrid Woolard, 2001. "The labour market and household income inequality in South Africa: existing evidence and new panel data," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(6), pages 671-689.
    28. Daniela Casale, 2004. "What has the Feminisation of the Labour Market ‘Bought’ Women in South Africa? Trends in Labour Force Participation, Employment and Earnings, 1995-2001," Working Papers 04084, University of Cape Town, Development Policy Research Unit.
    29. Gary Fields & Paul Cichello & Samuel Freije & Marta Menéndez & David Newhouse, 2003. "For Richer or for Poorer? Evidence from Indonesia, South Africa, Spain, and Venezuela," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 1(1), pages 67-99, April.
    30. Daniela Casale, 2004. "What has the Feminisation of the Labour Market ‘Bought’ Women in South Africa? Trends in Labour Force Participation, Employment and Earnings, 1995–2001," Journal of Interdisciplinary Economics, , vol. 15(3-4), pages 251-275, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. 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.
    2. Jacqueline Mosomi, 2019. "Distributional changes in the gender wage gap in the post-apartheid South African labour market," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2019-17, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    3. Damir Esenaliev & Susan Steiner, 2012. "Are Uzbeks Better off than Kyrgyz?: Measuring and Decomposing Horizontal Inequality," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1252, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    4. Kang, Woojin & Imai, Katsushi S., 2012. "Pro-poor growth, poverty and inequality in rural Vietnam," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(5), pages 527-539.
    5. Leonardo Gasparini & Mariana Marchionni & Federico Gutierrez, 2004. "Simulating Income Distribution Changes in Bolivia: a Microeconometric Approach," CEDLAS, Working Papers 0012, CEDLAS, Universidad Nacional de La Plata.
    6. Diana Chiliquinga & Gaurav Datt, 2016. "Changing Betas or Changing X’s? Evolution of Income and Poverty in Ecuador, 2001-12," Monash Economics Working Papers 14-16, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    7. Hatem Jemmali, 2017. "What Drive Regional Economic Inequalities in Tunisia? Evidence From Unconditional Quantile Decomposition Analysis," Working Papers 1159, Economic Research Forum, revised 11 2017.
    8. Melanie Grosse & Stephan Klasen & Julius Spatz, 2005. "Creating National Poverty Profiles and Growth Incidence Curves with Incomplete Income or Consumption Expenditure Data: An Application to Bolivia," Ibero America Institute for Econ. Research (IAI) Discussion Papers 129, Ibero-America Institute for Economic Research.
    9. Janz, Teresa & Augsburg, Britta & Gassmann, Franziska & Nimeh, Zina, 2023. "Leaving no one behind: Urban poverty traps in Sub-Saharan Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    10. repec:dgr:rugggd:gd-114 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Omar Arias & Gustavo Yamada & Luis Tejerina, 2004. "Education, family background and racial earnings inequality in Brazil," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 25(3/4), pages 355-374, April.
    12. Klasen, Stephan & Reimers, Malte, 2017. "Looking at Pro-Poor Growth from an Agricultural Perspective," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 147-168.
    13. Anna D'Souza & Dean Jolliffe, 2012. "Rising Food Prices and Coping Strategies: Household-level Evidence from Afghanistan," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(2), pages 282-299, August.
    14. Murray Leibbrandt & James Levinsohn, 2014. "Fifteen Years On: Household Incomes in South Africa," NBER Chapters, in: African Successes, Volume I: Government and Institutions, pages 333-355, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Ferreira, Francisco H. G. & Firpo, Sergio & Messina, Julián, 2017. "Ageing Poorly? Accounting for the Decline in Earnings Inequality in Brazil, 1995-2012," IZA Discussion Papers 10656, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
    16. Ferreira , Francisco H. G., 2010. "Distributions in motion: economic growth, inequality, and poverty dynamics," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5424, The World Bank.
    17. Hai‐Anh Dang & Dean Jolliffe & Calogero Carletto, 2019. "Data Gaps, Data Incomparability, And Data Imputation: A Review Of Poverty Measurement Methods For Data‐Scarce Environments," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(3), pages 757-797, July.
    18. 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.
    19. Thanh P. Bui & Katsushi S. Imai, 2019. "Determinants of Rural-Urban Inequality in Vietnam: Detailed Decomposition Analyses Based on Unconditional Quantile Regressions," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 55(12), pages 2610-2625, December.
    20. Aguero, Jorge M. & Carter, Michael R. & May, Julian, 2006. "Poverty and Inequality in the First Decade of South Africa's Democracy: What Can be Learned from Panel Data?," Staff Papers 12621, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics.
    21. World Bank Group, 2017. "Convergence without Equity," World Bank Publications - Reports 30045, The World Bank Group.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Poverty; Inequality; South Africa;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:wdi:papers:2005-739. 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: WDI (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/wdumius.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.