Emergent black affluence and social mobility in post-apartheid South Africa

The paper focuses on income distribution to examine the extent to which the emerging black middle class is contributing to social mobility and overall inequality in the country.

The authors identify the determinants of black affluence from the rest of the population through descriptive analysis. They use the 1995 October Household Survey/ Income and Expenditure Survey (OHS/IES) as the primary source of data and per capita household income as measure of welfare based on a sample size of 4456 observations, 913 of whom are black. The terms poor, middle-class, merely affluent and very affluent are used to classify households based on 1995 prices. The population groups are classified as black, colored, Indian and white.

The authors present the following observations concerning population groups:

• significant changes have occurred in the racial distribution of wealth - despite comprising 70% of the population, black representation in the affluent group has increased from 22% in 1995 to 41% in 2000
• inter-racial shifts in affluence have been more pronounced among younger cohorts
• affluence is more prevalent in urban areas
• affluent households generally have smaller families
• there is a shift towards single- member households among the affluent and very affluent black households
• female-headed black households were less common amongst the affluent than non-affluent households

The authors use logit and multinominal logit models to assess the effect of geography, household characteristics and the age, education and occupation of the household head on the probability of being affluent and also to investigate how affluence predictors vary between different race groups. The results for the logistic regressions of affluence for the 1995 and 2000 surveys are presented below:

• coloured or Indian households have a higher likelihood of being affluent than black households
• white households are more likely to be affluent than other population groups
• affluence declines with additional years of education at low levels of education attainment
• households’ head with a tertiary rather than secondary or primary education could improve the probability of being affluent
• living in rural areas reduces the likelihood of affluence
• affluence decreases dramatically as the number of non-working household members increase

The authors deduce that race is a strong defining characteristic for the clusters. The analysis of 2000, however, indicates the emergence of a large, young, racially integrated generation of affluent moving towards a dynamic non- racial society.