Despite significant economic growth, major social transformation and racial inclusiveness since the end of the apartheid regime, wealth inequality in South Africa has not reduced, according to a study. The study by researchers from the World Inequality Lab of the Paris School of Economics and the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand was published in the World Bank Economic Review on 31 July 2021. It estimates the distribution of household wealth in South Africa from 1993 to 2017, using household survey data, tax microdata and macroeconomic balance sheets. One of the authors, Amory Gethin, highlighted that existing studies on wealth distribution focus on income and consumption. Existing wealth surveys also underestimate financial assets - leading to a knowledge gap in terms of properly measuring wealth inequality within the top 10%, which this study sought to address.

Source: News 24 August 04, 2021 03:00 UTC