Charting freedom: inequality beliefs, preferences for redistribution, and distributive social policy in contemporary South Africa
- Authors: Roberts, Benjamin J
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: South Africa -- Economic conditions South Africa -- Economic policy South Africa -- Social policy , Democracy -- Economic conditions -- South Africa Race discrimination -- South Africa Poverty -- South Africa Equality -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/64999 , vital:28644
- Description: While the transition to democracy in South Africa extended civil and political rights and freedoms to all South Africans, there has been disagreement over the preferred nature and scope of social rights within post-apartheid society, reflecting debates over the trajectory of economic policy. Appreciable developmental gains have been made by the state over the last quarter-century, yet the challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality persist, coupled with mounting popular discontent with the pace of transformation and political accountability. This has led to fundamental questions about social justice, restitution, and the kind of society we wish to promote. Appeals for a more inclusive, transformative social policy have also emerged, arguing that a wider vision of society is required involving multiple government responsibilities and informed by an ethic of equality and social solidarity. Against this background, in this thesis I study the views of the South African public towards economic inequality, general preferences for government-led redistribution, as well as support for social policies intended to promote racial and economic transformation. The research has been guided by several overarching questions: To what extent do South Africans share common general beliefs about material inequality? Does the public exhibit a preference for government redistribution in principle? And how unified or polarised are South Africans in their support for specific redress policies in the country? Responding to these questions has been achieved by drawing on unique, nationally representative data from the South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS), which has enabled me to chart social attitudes over a period of almost fifteen years between late 2003 and early 2017. Use has also been made of social citizenship as a guiding conceptual framework to understanding social policy predispositions and analysing attitudinal change. The results demonstrate that the public is united in its awareness of and deep concern about economic inequality. Since the early 2000s, a significant majority has consistently expressed the view that the income gap in the country is too large, articulated a strong preference for a more equitable social structure, and acknowledged the class and social tensions that economic inequality has produced. There is also a preference for a narrowing of earnings disparities, a more generous minimum wage, and regulatory limits on executive pay. While this suggests a desire for fair and legitimate remuneration, the analysis also reveals that South Africans are willing to tolerate fairly high levels of inequality. Nonetheless, these beliefs are generally interpreted as a desire for a more equitable and fair society. This preference for change is reflected in a fairly strong belief that government should assume responsibility for reducing material disparities. One’s social position, mobility history, awareness of inequality, political leaning and racial attitudes all have a bearing on how weak and strong this predisposition is, but the normative demand for political redistribution remains fairly widely shared irrespective of these individual traits. Greater polarisation is however evident with respect to redistributive social policy, especially measures designed to overcome historical racial injustice (affirmative action, sports quotas, and land reform). These intergroup differences converge considerably when referring to class-based policy measures. One surprising finding is the evidence that South Africa’s youngest generation, the so-called ‘Born Frees’, tend to adopt a similar predisposition to redress policy as older generations, thus confounding expectations of a post-apartheid value change. I conclude by arguing that there seems to be a firmer basis for a social compact about preferences for interventions designed to produce a more just society than is typically assumed. Intractably high levels of economic inequality during the country’s first quarter-century of democracy is resulting in a growing recognition of the need for a stronger policy emphasis on economic inequality in South Africa over coming decades if the vision enshrined in the Freedom Charter and the Constitution is to be realised. South Africans may not be able to fully agree about the specific elements that constitute a socially just response to economic inequality. Yet, the common identification of and concern with redressable injustice, coupled with a broad-based commitment to government redistribution and classbased social policies, could serve as a foundation on which to rekindle the solidaristic spirit of 1994 and forge progress towards a more equitable society.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
- Authors: Roberts, Benjamin J
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: South Africa -- Economic conditions South Africa -- Economic policy South Africa -- Social policy , Democracy -- Economic conditions -- South Africa Race discrimination -- South Africa Poverty -- South Africa Equality -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/64999 , vital:28644
- Description: While the transition to democracy in South Africa extended civil and political rights and freedoms to all South Africans, there has been disagreement over the preferred nature and scope of social rights within post-apartheid society, reflecting debates over the trajectory of economic policy. Appreciable developmental gains have been made by the state over the last quarter-century, yet the challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality persist, coupled with mounting popular discontent with the pace of transformation and political accountability. This has led to fundamental questions about social justice, restitution, and the kind of society we wish to promote. Appeals for a more inclusive, transformative social policy have also emerged, arguing that a wider vision of society is required involving multiple government responsibilities and informed by an ethic of equality and social solidarity. Against this background, in this thesis I study the views of the South African public towards economic inequality, general preferences for government-led redistribution, as well as support for social policies intended to promote racial and economic transformation. The research has been guided by several overarching questions: To what extent do South Africans share common general beliefs about material inequality? Does the public exhibit a preference for government redistribution in principle? And how unified or polarised are South Africans in their support for specific redress policies in the country? Responding to these questions has been achieved by drawing on unique, nationally representative data from the South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS), which has enabled me to chart social attitudes over a period of almost fifteen years between late 2003 and early 2017. Use has also been made of social citizenship as a guiding conceptual framework to understanding social policy predispositions and analysing attitudinal change. The results demonstrate that the public is united in its awareness of and deep concern about economic inequality. Since the early 2000s, a significant majority has consistently expressed the view that the income gap in the country is too large, articulated a strong preference for a more equitable social structure, and acknowledged the class and social tensions that economic inequality has produced. There is also a preference for a narrowing of earnings disparities, a more generous minimum wage, and regulatory limits on executive pay. While this suggests a desire for fair and legitimate remuneration, the analysis also reveals that South Africans are willing to tolerate fairly high levels of inequality. Nonetheless, these beliefs are generally interpreted as a desire for a more equitable and fair society. This preference for change is reflected in a fairly strong belief that government should assume responsibility for reducing material disparities. One’s social position, mobility history, awareness of inequality, political leaning and racial attitudes all have a bearing on how weak and strong this predisposition is, but the normative demand for political redistribution remains fairly widely shared irrespective of these individual traits. Greater polarisation is however evident with respect to redistributive social policy, especially measures designed to overcome historical racial injustice (affirmative action, sports quotas, and land reform). These intergroup differences converge considerably when referring to class-based policy measures. One surprising finding is the evidence that South Africa’s youngest generation, the so-called ‘Born Frees’, tend to adopt a similar predisposition to redress policy as older generations, thus confounding expectations of a post-apartheid value change. I conclude by arguing that there seems to be a firmer basis for a social compact about preferences for interventions designed to produce a more just society than is typically assumed. Intractably high levels of economic inequality during the country’s first quarter-century of democracy is resulting in a growing recognition of the need for a stronger policy emphasis on economic inequality in South Africa over coming decades if the vision enshrined in the Freedom Charter and the Constitution is to be realised. South Africans may not be able to fully agree about the specific elements that constitute a socially just response to economic inequality. Yet, the common identification of and concern with redressable injustice, coupled with a broad-based commitment to government redistribution and classbased social policies, could serve as a foundation on which to rekindle the solidaristic spirit of 1994 and forge progress towards a more equitable society.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
Online Appendix: The Best and Worst Times of Life for South Africans: Evidence of universal reference standards in evaluations of personal well-being using Bernheim’s ACSA
- Moller, Valerie, Roberts, Benjamin J
- Authors: Moller, Valerie , Roberts, Benjamin J
- Date: 2018
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/67024 , vital:29021
- Description: Online appendix to the authors’ paper published in Social Indicators Research under the title: ‘The Best and Worst Times of Life for South Africans: Evidence of universal reference standards in evaluations of personal well‐being using Bernheim’s ACSA’. From the introduction: The Anamnestic Comparative Self‐Assessment (Bernheim’s ACSA), a measure of personal well‐being, was applied in the 10th annual round of the nationally representative South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS), a research infrastructure that has been administered by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) since 2003. The target population for the survey was individuals aged 16 and over who live in South Africa. The multi‐stage sampling frame used by SASAS is based on census enumerator areas and data is weighted to the South African population using Statistics South Africa’s mid‐year population estimates as a benchmark. A total of 2’521 persons were interviewed in October and November 2012 by trained fieldworkers in their homes. Each interview was conducted in the respondent’s home language. ACSA was translated into the eleven official national languages. The SASAS 2012 study of ACSA follows on two earlier South African studies conducted in the Eastern Cape Province: a small pilot study conducted in 2005/6, followed by a larger representative community survey with some 1’000 respondents in 2007. ACSA uses a self‐anchoring scale. SASAS 2012 survey respondents were asked to think, first of their best period in life, and then of their worst period in life. These two periods represent the anchors of an 11‐ point scale running from ‐5 over a mid‐point (0), to +5. Text placed above the negative ‐5 anchor of the scale read: ‘As bad as the WORST period in my life’; text above the positive +5 anchor read: ‘As good as the BEST period in my life’. The respondents were asked to rate their present well‐being relative to these two periods on the scale. Their descriptions of these two extreme periods were recorded verbatim at the time of the interview. Later they were classified by domain in life based on the guidelines for the standard multiple‐choice format provided for recording ACSA anchors. This classification system is recommended by the ACSA scales’ initiator, Jan Bernheim and his colleagues. This online appendix to our Social Indicators Research article (‘The best and worst times of life for South Africans: Evidence of universal reference standards in evaluations of personal well‐being using Bernheim’s ACSA’) reports in greater detail the substantive contents of the survey responses to the ACSA anchoring process. The anchors of the ACSA scale serve as the reference standards for evaluating one’s life. Importantly, our 2012 SASAS survey respondents were invited to make explicit their choice of reference standards when reviewing their lives. This data offers a unique opportunity to gain rich insights into what matters for South Africans when they think about their quality of life and personal well‐being.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
- Authors: Moller, Valerie , Roberts, Benjamin J
- Date: 2018
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/67024 , vital:29021
- Description: Online appendix to the authors’ paper published in Social Indicators Research under the title: ‘The Best and Worst Times of Life for South Africans: Evidence of universal reference standards in evaluations of personal well‐being using Bernheim’s ACSA’. From the introduction: The Anamnestic Comparative Self‐Assessment (Bernheim’s ACSA), a measure of personal well‐being, was applied in the 10th annual round of the nationally representative South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS), a research infrastructure that has been administered by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) since 2003. The target population for the survey was individuals aged 16 and over who live in South Africa. The multi‐stage sampling frame used by SASAS is based on census enumerator areas and data is weighted to the South African population using Statistics South Africa’s mid‐year population estimates as a benchmark. A total of 2’521 persons were interviewed in October and November 2012 by trained fieldworkers in their homes. Each interview was conducted in the respondent’s home language. ACSA was translated into the eleven official national languages. The SASAS 2012 study of ACSA follows on two earlier South African studies conducted in the Eastern Cape Province: a small pilot study conducted in 2005/6, followed by a larger representative community survey with some 1’000 respondents in 2007. ACSA uses a self‐anchoring scale. SASAS 2012 survey respondents were asked to think, first of their best period in life, and then of their worst period in life. These two periods represent the anchors of an 11‐ point scale running from ‐5 over a mid‐point (0), to +5. Text placed above the negative ‐5 anchor of the scale read: ‘As bad as the WORST period in my life’; text above the positive +5 anchor read: ‘As good as the BEST period in my life’. The respondents were asked to rate their present well‐being relative to these two periods on the scale. Their descriptions of these two extreme periods were recorded verbatim at the time of the interview. Later they were classified by domain in life based on the guidelines for the standard multiple‐choice format provided for recording ACSA anchors. This classification system is recommended by the ACSA scales’ initiator, Jan Bernheim and his colleagues. This online appendix to our Social Indicators Research article (‘The best and worst times of life for South Africans: Evidence of universal reference standards in evaluations of personal well‐being using Bernheim’s ACSA’) reports in greater detail the substantive contents of the survey responses to the ACSA anchoring process. The anchors of the ACSA scale serve as the reference standards for evaluating one’s life. Importantly, our 2012 SASAS survey respondents were invited to make explicit their choice of reference standards when reviewing their lives. This data offers a unique opportunity to gain rich insights into what matters for South Africans when they think about their quality of life and personal well‐being.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
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