‘Racial income gap narrowing’
|Published
Filomena Scalise Filomena Scalise
There are still inequalities in income between black households and other racial groups living in suburbs – but the gap is closing.
A survey by Roots 2013 – which was sponsored by the Newspaper Advertising Bureau (NAB) – released its findings on Monday, which detailed the racial profiles of suburbs across South Africa.
The survey interviewed 28 500 people in 115 communities in the country and found that black purchase decision makers (PDMs) have increased since their last survey in 2007.
“Areas across the country continue to show increases in the number of black PDMs,” said Jacqui Bessinger, the head of the Roots survey.
Kempton Park has seen an increase from 35 percent to 47 percent of black PDMs living in the area in the past six years, while Midrand has gone from 53 to 62 percent during the same period.
It was found that Pretoria East, a traditional Afrikaans community, had seen an increase in black-headed households from 9 to 31 percent.
But black households in Gauteng still earn less on average than other races in the same communities.
“In Joburg North, for example, black households earn far less than their neighbours, while, when you move to the likes of Nelspruit and Middelburg, the opposite trend is apparent,” said John Bowles, the joint managing director at NAB.
In Sandton, the average monthly income for all households is just under R50 000, while the black households have an average income of just under R30 000, even though black households represent 46 percent of the black households interviewed. Fourways and Glenvista also indicate income discrepancies between the racial groups, but not as markedly as Sandton. - The Star