South Africa's Income Inequality: World's Highest

South Africa's income inequality rate, worlds highest. Why?
South Africa is the most economically unequal country in the world, according to the World Bank. The difference between the wealthy and poor in South Africa has been increasing steadily since the end of apartheid in 1994, with "race" playing a key role in a society where 10% of the population owns more than 80% of the wealth.
APARTHEID
Thirty years after the end of apartheid, "race remains a key factor in South Africa's high levels of inequality, due to its impact on education and the labor market. Ethnicity contributes 41% to income inequality and 30% in education. "The legacy of colonialism and apartheid, rooted in racial and spatial segregation, continues to reinforce inequality," according to world bank''.
South Africa's leading industrial neighbors that make up the Southern African Customs Union, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho and Namibia, all top the list of most unequal countries, making the region the worst in the world, the organization says. Gender also plays an important role. In the region, women earn on average 30% less than men with equivalent levels of education. Gender pay gaps reach 38% in Namibia and South Africa.
The unequal distribution of agricultural land is also a factor, especially in rural areas. In Namibia, 70% of the 39.7 million hectares of commercial farmland "is still owned by Namibians of European origin, according to world bank.
DIFFERENCES IN RACIAL GROUPS
The black population in South Africa stands at 80.6% of the population, the mixed race category makes up 8.8%, the whites make up 8.1% and Asians including Indians make up 2.5%. According to CNN, white South Africans earn nearly three times the average wage made by black South Africans, who take up the overwhelming majority of the workforce population. Data shows that the widening and intergenerational gap is disproportionately affecting the black South Africans. The World Bank estimates that South Africa would need to double the amount of jobs created every year, in order to see a significant reduction. The service sector dominates the homogenous workforce, and the low skilled manufacturing or agricultural jobs are declining. South Africa is on track to produce a more polarized country in multiple categories, leaving the lower income classes with less opportunity to grow and a lack of exposure to education or other ingredients for growth across generations.
COMPARISON WITH OTHER COUNTRIES
South Africa's gini coefficient has remained high since 1982, and has proven to be noticeably higher than countries with similar characteristics. For example, South Africa has gini coefficient of 63 (highest), the United States is at 41.5 and Ukraine stands with a score of 25 (lowest). Although Brazil and South Africa are often placed in the same category in terms of wealth and income inequality, Brazil has seen more positive results in recent years.
The top 20% of the population in most countries holds a median of 47% of the income, whereas in South Africa the top 20% of the population holds near 70% of the income. The remainder is mostly made up of the middle class, and collectively both the top 20% and the middle class leave less than 5% of the income for the bottom 20% of the population.
South Africa's income inequality has been a major setback over the years and this daring problem can only be solved if the nation create jobs 5 times what it has, to greatly reduce unemployment rate in the country.
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