Cultural consumption and equality of access during economic downturns: The expenditure Gini coefficient for South Africa

Abstract

An important social development goal is to broaden access, especially equality of access, to arts, culture and heritage. This paper used large, national-level data sets to investigate the equality of access to cultural and creative goods and services in South Africa by calculating an expenditure Gini coefficient for cultural and creative industries. Results showed that the Gini coefficient of expenditure for the cultural and creative industries was higher than for spending overall and rose during the 2009 financial crisis. From 2011 to 2021, cultural expenditure inequality trended upwards, but during the pandemic, it declined, perhaps as a result of an expansion of online access.