How SA is Changing

South Africa is a transformed society – it is there in black and white. Or is it? Research by alternative prosperity, commissioned by finweek, analysed numerous publicly available statistics on transformation across a person’s lifetime to assess the progress that has been made since the dawn of democracy. 

- Marcia Klein

Yes, transformation has occurred in South Africa since 1994. But no, South Africa is not yet transformed.

In a study by Alternative Prosperity for finweek, the researchers selectively examined progress across four stages of economic life: education; work, earnings and accumulation; leadership, influence and ownership; and retirement. The results were surprising – and often also disappointing.

“The strongest message from our research is that we still have a long road before achieving black economic empowerment. In the years that followed our democracy there is reason to be disappointed. We are sure that this is not news to South Africans,” says Rudolph Fourie, director of Alternative Prosperity.

The results partly reflect the evolution of South African society and partly the effects of race-based policies and interventions to stimulate the inclusion of black people in the economy, such as laws on employment equity and black economic empowerment. (In this article, the term black is used to describe African, Indian and Coloured South Africans, as per legislation on BEE.)

In general, though, access to education and the relative number of Africans passing matric and going into higher education, has increased significantly. There are more African academics, judges, doctors and accountants than in 1994 – so while nowhere near reflecting SA’s demographics, the numbers are increasing.

The same can be said for ownership of shares and people in leadership positions.