Income inequality in Africa, 1990–2019: Measurement, patterns, determinants

Lucas Chancel, Denis Cogneau, Amory Gethin, Alix Myczkowski and Anne-Sophie Robilliard

World Development, 2023, vol. 163, issue C

Abstract: This article estimates the evolution of income inequality in Africa from 1990 to 2019 by combining surveys, tax data, and national accounts. Inequality in Africa is very high: the regional top 10% income share nears 55%, on par with regions characterized by extreme inequality, such as Latin America and India. Most of continent-wide income inequality comes from the within-country component rather than from average income differences between countries. Inequality is highest in Southern Africa and lowest in Northern and Western Africa. It remained fairly stable from 1990 to 2019, with the exception of Southern Africa, where it increased significantly. Among historical determinants, this geographical pattern seems to reveal the long shadow of settler colonialism, at least in Sub-Saharan Africa; the spread of Islam stands out as another robust correlate. The poor quality of the raw data calls for great caution, in particular when analyzing country-level dynamics.

Keywords: Inequality; Poverty; Africa; Distributional national accounts; Colonialism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X22003527
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Income inequality in Africa, 1990–2019: Measurement, patterns, determinants (2023)
Working Paper: Income inequality in Africa, 1990–2019: Measurement, patterns, determinants (2023)
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:eee:wdevel:v:163:y:2023:i:c:s0305750x22003527

DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2022.106162

Access Statistics for this article

World Development is currently edited by O. T. Coomes

More articles in World Development from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().