South Africa is one of the most unequal societies in the world. By 2008, 85% of Africans were still in the impoverished or lower income categories receiving less than R1,400 per month compared to 87% of whites in the middle and upper income categories. Unemployment too has barely moved from the 23% inherited in 1994 to a post-Apartheid average of 24.5%. With 70% of the unemployed under 34, the young are disproportionately affected.
Job and export creating mining and manufacturing almost halved their share of GDP to 23% since 1986, while banking and real estate doubled to 24%. Public sector, despite increasing to 2m employees, has seen its contribution to GDP fall from 19% in 1994 to 15% today. With public service union membership rising, labor militancy is now as much an issue for government as it is for the private sector. Despite increased budgets, health and education outputs lag emerging market peers on quality and effectiveness of spending when measuring life expectancy and quality of schooling.
Since 1994, indebtedness (household debt to disposable income) has soared from 57% to 76%. 9.5m South Africans have impaired credit records and as many as 10% may risk defaulting.
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