South Africa: Go Out of Town to Find the Roots of the Country's Persistent Inequality

opinion

Johannesburg — A PRESENTATION by the eminent sociologist Gay Seidman at a recent colloquium in honour of Prof Eddie Webster at Wits contrasted Brazil's success in improving equity with the continued deep inequalities in SA.

At the start of the 1990s, Brazil ranked with SA among the five most unequal countries. But since then Brazil has grown steadily more equitable, while SA has apparently achieved little in this regard. In 2006, Brazil's Gini coefficient was about 0,55, while official data put SA's above 0,7 (zero means very low inequality; one very high inequality). It seems likely SA's figure was exaggerated. Still, the data point to a failure to reduce inequality significantly.

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