- Title
- A question of inclusivity: how did average incomes change over the first fifteen years of democracy?
- Title
- ISER Working Paper, no. 2015/2
- Creator
- Visagie, Justin
- Subject
- Income -- South Africa Economic development -- South Africa Income distribution -- South Africa South Africa -- Economic conditions
- Date
- 2015
- Type
- Book
- Type
- Text
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10962/3071
- Identifier
- vital:20366
- Identifier
- ISBN 9780868106052
- Description
- This paper attempts to assess the extent of inclusivity in post-apartheid income growth by focusing on one intuitive part of the income distribution: the actual middle (or middle-income strata). If South African macro and social policy explicitly aims to be ‘inclusive’, it is important to know how the average [median] South African income level changed over the first fifteen years of democracy. Common summary measures of economic progress such as GDP per capita may mask the standard of living experienced by the majority of the population in any particular period. Tracking the progress in the middle strata of South Africa’s income distribution provides a fresh perspective on the nature of economic progress in the country. This is against a worrying backdrop of rising income inequality post-1994 (Van der Berg and Louw, 2004; Hoogeveen and Özler, 2006; Leibbrandt et al, 2010). The paper is structured as follows. Section 2 motivates for the importance of focussing on the actual middle of the income distribution and highlights the emphasis on reducing income inequality within South African macroeconomic and social policy. Issues of comparability in the data and the choice of definition for the middle are discussed in section 3. Section 4 presents descriptive statistics relating to changes in incomes, and ends with a brief analysis of non-income measures of progress. The final section summarises the main findings and concludes.
- Format
- 17 pages, pdf
- Publisher
- Rhodes University, Institute of Social and Economic Research
- Language
- English
- Relation
- ISER Working Paper, no. 2015/2, Working Paper Series: Social Policy and Labour
- Rights
- Visagie, Justin
- Rights
- http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
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