President Mandela’s report to the UN World Summit on Social Development shows that South Africa still has a long walk to prosperity, writes Justin Pearce
South Africa is one of the most unequal nations in the world with regard to income distribution. This is the essence of the National Social Development Report which President Nelson Mandela presented to the United Nations World Summit on Social Development in Copenhagen last week.
The report presents a stark portrait of the inequalities which Wednesday’s budget was designed to redress. Not surprisingly, the scales are weighted heavily against those groups which the RDP intends to uplift — blacks, women and rural dwellers. The aftershock of apartheid is evident not only in the racial skewing of wealth, but also in the fact that the former homelands lag way behind the rest of South Africa in terms of wealth and social development.
The poverty gap in South Africa is estimated at R18- million. This figure represents the amount of wealth that will have to be redistributed to bring the living conditions of all South Africans at least up to the poverty line. Seventy-four percent of the poverty burden is carried by people living in the former homeland areas.
The report breaks the population down into white, Asian, coloured and African; male and female; and rural, urban and metropolitan groups. Africans earn a per capita disposable income only 13 percent of that earned by whites. Asians, on average the wealthiest black group, still receive a per capita income only 40 percent of that of whites.
More than a quarter of South African children experience stunted growth as the result of malnutrition. While only 4,9 percent of white children are stunted, the figure for Africans is 28,3 percent.
South Africa is far from being among the poorest countries in the world. According to the World Bank, its gross national product per capita is nearly 25 times that of Mozambique. The report to the UN Summit classes South Africa as “middle income”, but states that in comparison with other middle income countries, South Africa displays a high infant mortality rate: 49 deaths per 1000 live births, against an average of 38 for middle-income countries.
South Africans can expect to live to the age of 64 years, while the average life expectancy for middle- income countries is 66 years. Infant mortality and low life expectancy are classic indicators of poverty, and in South Africa they reflect the inadequacy of basic health services and the low standard of living experienced by most of the population.
Rural people, especially Africans, are severely disadvantaged in terms of access to services such as health care, running water and electricity. In the homeland areas there are between 10 000 and 30 000 people for each doctor: in metropolitan areas, by contrast, there is one doctor for every 700 people. While virtually all urban whites have electricity in their homes, only 65 percent of Africans in metropolitan areas, and 25 percent of rural Africans have electricity.
The report presents some surprising information on the precise way in which women are marginalised. In education, for example, there are more girls than boys currently in schools. Girls outnumber boys in matric classes across the country. Yet while 33 percent of boys pass matric, only 29 percent of girls make it through the exams.
The report suggests that the imbalance stems from the fact that boys enjoy greater parental support, while girls have to contend with domestic responsibilities, sexual harassment, abuse and pregnancy.
Similarly, as much as 45 percent of the labour force is female, but the distribution of women across the labour force is skewed towards the marginal end of the scale: subsistence agriculture and non-market work. Female unemployment is about six percentage points higher than the figure for men.
Across South Africa, 26 percent of households are headed by women and, of these, less than one fifth are single-person households. Taking Africans as a group, as many as 30 percent of African households are women- headed. Significantly, the average per capita income in women-headed households (R243) is barely half the average for all households (R468) — a clear indication of how women’s empowerment will have consequences for the whole of society.
In contrast to the popular notion of rural women left behind by migrant labourer husbands, woman-headed households are in fact more prevalent in metropolitan areas. While 28 percent of rural African households are headed by women, in the big cities the figure is 35
The report quotes estimates that unemployment in South Africa is approaching 30 percent across the board, and is over 35 percent for Africans — but warns that the real figures are “certainly much higher”. The formal economy is becoming less labour intensive and can only provide employment to half the labour force. While the formal sector requires increasingly skilled employees, only half the labour force is estimated to have medium or high-level skills.