Women, income and poverty: Gendered access to resources in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Background

This article analyzes gendered income poverty trends in post-apartheid South Africa, focusing on the complex societal shifts that emerged during the transition from apartheid. The authors highlight how these changes have affected women’s access to resources—improving it through increased employment opportunities and hindering it due to challenges like the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

Goals and Methods

Previous studies on poverty in South Africa have largely prioritized racial disparities, often neglecting gender-based differences. This research fills this gap by analyzing income poverty trends through a gendered lens. The study explores two key questions: whether females are more likely than males to live in poor households and how the gender of the household head affects household economic well-being. The authors use nationally representative household survey data from 1997, 1999, 2004, and 2006, and address limitations in income reporting by incorporating household expenditure data.

Conclusions and Takeaways

Posel and Rogan’s study shows that women in South Africa face a significantly higher risk of income poverty than men, and this disparity widened between 1997 and 2006, even as poverty rates declined overall. Several factors contribute to this trend: women earn lower wages, experience higher unemployment rates, and depend more heavily on social grants, which fail to close the earnings gap. The study also emphasizes the increased vulnerability of female-headed households, which are far more likely to experience poverty than male-headed households due to their reliance on women’s income. This inequality worsens because poverty rates declined more slowly for female-headed households. The authors call for policies that address persistent gender inequalities in the labor market to effectively reduce income poverty in South Africa.