 The Racial Wealth Gap in South Africa and the United StatesGrieve Chelwa, Mashekwa Maboshe and Darrick Hamilton Review of Political Economy, 2024, vol. 36, issue 2, 423-440 Abstract: We present evidence on the Black–White Racial Wealth Gap in South Africa and compare it to the well-known patterns of the same gap in the United States. We find that the patterns in the overall racial wealth gap are similar between the two countries. In South Africa, the typical Black household owns 5 per cent of the wealth held by the typical White household. In the US, the typical Black household owns 6 per cent of the wealth held by the typical White household. In both countries, a racial wealth gap exists at different levels of education and income. The fact that the racial wealth gap in the US is similar to that of a country that recently emerged from apartheid is a sobering indictment. Conversely, the US presents a grim outlook of the future course of the racial wealth gap in South Africa, especially in the absence of economic redress. The similarities in the evidence between the two countries points to the potential utility of using the Identity Group Stratification framework for understanding racial wealth dynamics in South Africa, an approach that is absent in the literature. Date: 2024 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:revpoe:v:36:y:2024:i:2:p:423-440 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from DOI: 10.1080/09538259.2024.2318962 Access Statistics for this article Review of Political Economy is currently edited by Steve Pressman and Louis-Philippe Rochon More articles in Review of Political Economy from Taylor & Francis Journals |
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