Legacies of apartheid: the distribution of income in South Africa

Paul Mosley, Scott McDonald () and Jenifer Piesse
Additional contact information
Paul Mosley: Department of Economics, University of Sheffield, 9 Mappin Street, Sheffield, S1 4DT, Postal: Department of Economics, University of Sheffield, 9 Mappin Street, Sheffield, S1 4DT
Jenifer Piesse: Birkbeck College, University of London and University of Pretoria, Postal: Birkbeck College, University of London and University of Pretoria

Journal of International Development, 1999, vol. 11, issue 7, 985-1004

Abstract: After more than a century of apartheid, the African National Congress (ANC) inherited one of the most unequal societies in the world. The degree of inequality and discrimination are remarkably well documented. Periodic income and expenditure surveys during the 1980s and 1990s and annual household surveys since the early 1990s provide a wealth of information. Gini decomposition is used to analyse levels of income inequality by source using 1995 data, focusing on four regions, each with mixed characteristics concerning their racial, geographical and economic base. Wage income is found to be the major source of inequality, while other components of total household income contribute to making the distribution more or less unequal. While the results demonstrate that there was a clear racial component in the inequality of income distribution in South Africa, they also demonstrate that a simple account, which emphasizes race, ignores the complexities. They also demonstrate the magnitude of the task facing the present government. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Date: 1999
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

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:wly:jintdv:v:11:y:1999:i:7:p:985-1004

DOI: 10.1002/(SICI)1099-1328(199911/12)11:7<985::AID-JID645>3.0.CO;2-V

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of International Development is currently edited by Paul Mosley and Hazel Johnson

More articles in Journal of International Development from John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().