The Racial Wealth Gap in South Africa and the United States

Abstract

We present evidence on the Black–White Racial Wealth Gap in South Africa and compare it to the well-known patterns of the same gap in the United States. We find that the patterns in the overall racial wealth gap are similar between the two countries. In South Africa, the typical Black household owns 5 per cent of the wealth held by the typical White household. In the US, the typical Black household owns 6 per cent of the wealth held by the typical White household. In both countries, a racial wealth gap exists at different levels of education and income. The fact that the racial wealth gap in the US is similar to that of a country that recently emerged from apartheid is a sobering indictment. Conversely, the US presents a grim outlook of the future course of the racial wealth gap in South Africa, especially in the absence of economic redress. The similarities in the evidence between the two countries points to the potential utility of using the Identity Group Stratification framework for understanding racial wealth dynamics in South Africa, an approach that is absent in the literature.