In order to evaluate the extent to which a country achieves the objectives of poverty and inequality reduction, up-to-date, reliable and comparable survey data is required. This paper critically reviews the factors which could affect the comparability and reliability of poverty estimates and...

Using a constructed data series and another data series based on AMPS (the All Media and Products Survey), this paper explores trends in poverty and income distribution over the post-transition period. To steer clear of an unduly optimistic conclusion, assumptions are chosen that would tend to...

Census 1996 and Census 2001 are the only all-inclusive censuses conducted by Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) under the new democratic dispensation, providing information on demographics, educational attainment, migration status, labour market status, economic activities, income, housing, and...

This paper describes and analyses current poverty and income distribution in South Africa, with a central concern the relationship between poverty, inequality and growth. The paper also investigates patterns of and trends in poverty and income distribution, a literature with a long and...

In using survey data for money metric analysis of poverty and well-being, it is customary to adjust either the data or the poverty line for spatial prices differentials where data exist to make such adjustment. In developing countries where recorded price differentials between regions or...

The causes of the poor white problem, first noted at a Dutch Reformed Church Synod in 1886, were unclear; many blamed the inadequate education system, urbanisation, cheap wages or cultural factors, while others argued that external events such as the rinderpest disease or the Anglo-Boer war...

Research on income distribution in South Africa has, for obvious reasons, focused on inter-racial (inter-group) income distribution. Quite dramatic changes have occurred in inter-racial income distribution patterns since the 1970s, with the black share of income rising for the first time and at...

This study specifically investigated the factors that influenced access by the poor and Blacks to credit in the segmented financial sector in South Africa, using income and expenditure survey data from 1995 and 2000. The study sheds light on the extent of financial sector deepening through...

The paper examines household formation and composition decisions within the context of risk reduction and risk mitigation strategies of the poor in South Africa. A multi-level heckprobit estimator is employed in order to capture the influence of various factors at the individual, household and...

Poverty in rural Ethiopia is vast by any standard. Using the Ethiopian Rural Household Survey (ERHS), which is a panel data set consisting of four rounds between 1994 and 1997, this analysis aims to examine the broad trends in poverty by calculating and decomposing poverty measures of the...