The gap between rich and poor: South African society's biggest divide depends on where you think you fit in

Tiaan Meiring, Catherine Kannemeyer and Elnari Potgieter
Additional contact information
Tiaan Meiring: Institute for Justice and Reconciliation.
Catherine Kannemeyer: Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, School of Economics, University of Cape Town
Elnari Potgieter: South Africa Reconciliation Barometer, Institute for Justice and Reconciliation

No 220, SALDRU Working Papers from Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town

Abstract: In this paper we consider social cohesion primarily in terms of its absence – "the nature and extent of social and economic divisions within society" (Easterly et al., 2006: 105). We use data from the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation's South African Reconciliation Barometer (SARB) to advance an understanding of what underpins individual perceptions of inequality as the biggest division in South Africa. In particular, our interest is in the relationship between perceived relative standing and registering the gap between rich and poor as the greatest divide in South Africa.

Keywords: social cohesion; South Africa; inequality; poverty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.opensaldru.uct.ac.za/handle/11090/901 Full text (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ldr:wpaper:220

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in SALDRU Working Papers from Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Alison Siljeur ().