African Christian

Connecting People and Resources to help fight child poverty in Africa

Poverty in South Africa

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POVERTY IN SOUTH AFRICA

Poverty in South Africa cannot be separated from the effect of apartheid. Some blacks developed a psychological feeling of inferiority that was cultivated through the apartheid system. Steve Biko is regarded as the ‘father’ of the black consciousness movement (BCM) which has been credited with freeing Africans from the psychological inferiority complex.

This system did not allow the blacks to get a quality education. This lack of education hindered their ability to alleviate themselves from the situation they were in. They were also not in a position to access good medical services.

Poverty in South Africa is not only for the blacks though, it is an issue for everyone. O’Reilly says that “While most white South Africans still enjoy lives of privilege and relative wealth, the number of poor whites has risen steadily over the past 15 years.” This former Anglican bishop of Cape Town has described the poverty situation as an emergency. Many voices now in South Africa are being heard crying out that poverty is a human issue and not a racial one.

New estimates of poverty show that the proportion of people living in poverty in South Africa has not changed significantly between 1996 and 2001. However, those households living in poverty have sunk deeper into poverty and the gap between rich and poor has widened. The Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) in collaboration with Mr. Andrew Whiteford, a South African economist, has generated these estimates.

Statistics – Poverty  in South Africa

  1. Approximately 57% of individuals in South Africa were living below the poverty income line in 2001, unchanged from 1996. (source: HSRC)
  2. Limpopo and the Eastern Cape had the highest proportion of poor with 77% and 72% of their populations living below the poverty income line, respectively. (source: HSRC)
  3. The Western Cape had the lowest proportion in poverty (32%), followed by Gauteng (42%). (source: HSRC)
  4. The HSRC has estimated poverty rates for each municipality. The majority of municipalities with the lowest poverty rates are found in the Western Cape. These include Stellenbosch (23%) and Saldanha Bay (25%). (source: HSRC)
  5. The major city with the lowest poverty rate is Cape Town (30%). (source: HSRC)
  6. Pretoria and Johannesburg have somewhat higher rates of 35% and 38%, respectively, while Durban has a rate of 44%. (source: HSRC)
  7. The poorest municipality is Ntabankulu in the Eastern Cape, where 85% of its residents live below the poverty line.
  8. The 10 poorest municipalities are located in the Eastern Cape while two are located in Limpopo and one in the Free State. An the millions of poor black South Africans.(source: HSRC)
  9. ‘My household is able to get enough food for its needs’. The 2005 survey found that 91.3% of the white respondents agree with the statement, whereas 85.9% of Indians, 65.2% of colored and 48.5% of blacks agreed. (Source: HSRC)
  10. The expanded public works program aims to create 200,000 jobs a year, but they are temporary jobs. Unemployment levels are between 5 million and 8 million (source: IRIN)
  11. In 2002, it was estimated that 11 million children (between the ages of 0-18) were living in dire poverty in South Africa on less than R 200 per capita per month and therefore living on less than half the minimal R400 per capita per month required to meet their basic needs. (source:  ACESS)
  12. 14.3 million Children are living in poverty on less than R400 per capita per month (R490 in 2002 terms). Only 15% of these 14.3 million children receive the Child Support Grant (source; ACESS)