The relationship between spatial inequality and attitudes to inequality in South Africa

Michael Noble

Gemma Wright

Background and rationale

SA gov now lists inequality alongside poverty and unemployment as the three core economic challenges facing the country.

ANC’s 2009 election manifesto laments the persistence of inequality and refers to the 1955 Freedom Charter principle that “the people shall share in the country’s wealth” as basis for renewed commitment to economic transformation.

Both the New Growth Path (NGP 2010) and the National Development Plan (NDP 2012) adopt inequality reduction as a core priority.

Strong imperative to broaden and deepen empirical evidence base concerning inequality in South Africa.

ESRC Pathfinder project overview

Relatively small collaborative project between CASASP (University of Oxford) and the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) in South Africa.

Funded mainly by the ESRC, with some additional financial contribution by the South African National Research Foundation.

The specific objectives of the Pathfinder initiative are to:1. Build or strengthen research networks, joining social scientists in South

Africa with UK counterparts.

2. Help build capacity in quantitative methods in the social sciences within South Africa.

3. Familiarise UK social scientists with a range of data resources not widely recognised as available for research in South Africa.

Research aims

The project was motivated by three pressing needs:

1. The need to better understand the unequal spatial configuration of deprivation at small area level as a measure of people’s lived experience of inequality.

2. The need to better understand people’s attitudes towards inequality and towards policy options for redress.

3. The need to test whether people’s attitudes are influenced by (or associated with) their lived experience of inequality.

Structure of project

Spatial inequality(CASASP)

Attitudes to inequality(HSRC)

Linking the spatial to the attitudinal(CASASP & HSRC)

Datasets

Spatial patterns of deprivation at detailed geographical level examined using the South African Index of Multiple Deprivation 2001 at Datazone level (SAIMD 2001).

Attitudinal perspectives examined using the South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS).