Despite several efforts to promote pro-poor growth, South Africa remains one of the most unequal countries in the world. While the country's colonial history and apartheid are known to have contributed to this inequality level, the nature and dynamics of its impact on society are yet to be fully understood.

Literature suggests that better institutions and lower level of inequality improve subjective wellbeing. However, evidence that examine how the interaction between these two variables explain variation in wellbeing is relatively scarce. This study will thus contribute to a deeper understanding of inequalities in South Africa. 

This project is part of the call for research proposals “Advancing the inequality agenda through collaborative research: identifying the priorities for a global Team Europe approach on inequalities”, launched by the Strategic Committee of the Research Facility on Inequalities. It is coordinated by AFD and co-financed by the European Commission, AECID and ENABEL. 

This research project has two main objectives:

• Explore how variations in governance (such as audit outcomes) across South Africa's district municipalities explain the variation in the well-being of individuals.
• Investigate how the interaction between the variation in governance across local government municipalities and inequality among individuals explains variation in subjective well-being.

To investigate the interactions between the quality of institutions and of the governance, the level of spatial inequality and the subjective wellbeing, researchers will use the National Income Dynamics Study (NIDS), a nationally representative survey of individuals across South Africa, which is repeated over five waves between 2008 and 2017. They will also use audit outcomes of local municipalities to proxy for the quality of governance.

You will find below the different research papers related to this project:

In progress

Contact: 

• Anda David, Research Officer, AFD