Inequality of Opportunity in South Africa. Comparative analysis for 2014 and 2017.

Abstract

This paper examines the effect of exogenous factors on the socio-economic welfare of individuals in the Republic of South Africa in 2014 and 2017 by determining to what extent the variability of the success on the labour market is due to unequal pre-determined circumstances. In order to achieve this, different measures of Inequality of Opportunities were applied to Wave 3 (2014) and Wave 4 (2017) of the National Income Dynamic Study (NIDS). The set of circumstances used to perform this study included race, gender, place of birth as well as education and profession of the parents of the examined individual. Following the estimation, comparative analysis between the two above-mentioned time periods was performed so that the trend of the inequality due to different exogenous environments could be examined.