Dimensions of Poverty in Post Apartheid South Africa 1996-2001

What are the most salient poverty indicators in South Africa?

By: Bhorat H, Poswell L & Naidoo P
Produced by: Development Policy Research Unit (DPRU), University of Cape Town. 2004

This survey of poverty in post-apartheid south Africa defines and examines poverty in the South African context. The aim of this report is to provide a picture of asset and services deprivation, economic activity, and health and safety, and to illustrate and crime. The report also examines the changes in these indicators from 1996 to 2001. The report is divided in to six main sections:

• Section 1 presents a brief overview of the demographic and location-specific characteristics of the country in 1996 and 2001
• Section 2 considers key indicators of deprivation such as access to basic goods and services
• Section 3 focuses on economic indicators of wellbeing and includes data on education, employment and unemployment
• Sections 4 and 5 provide additional coverage of fundamental poverty indicators not included in the previous sections such as health status and crime
• Section 6 ends the report with some concluding remarks

The authors' main conclusions include:

• Any analysis of poverty in South Africa, should combine both the standard income approach to poverty with appropriate measures of the assets owned and services accessed by the populace. These latter indicators are vital markers for the degree and extent of ‘entitlement deprivation’ in the society
• While this particular status report uses a provincial comparison as a point of contrast, other covariates such as race and gender of household head, location and mean years of schooling of a household, continue to remain important predictors of asset poverty and services deprivation.