Race In South Africa

Differences among human race in terms of intelligence and capabilities are natural. Individuals also have various skillsed in different scale. These differences affect the status and wellbeing of individuals. Individuals with skills and intelligence that highly demanded in the market have higher income and better life, whereas persons with less valued skilled undergo hardship in their daily life. Although the discrimination on the basis of skill and intelligence is natural, and also desirable up to some certain degree, some discrimination seemingly emanated from nature are regarded as evil and highly undesirable in any society. Thus, there is unanimous consensus in across all the societies that discrimination stemmed from race, ethnicity, religion,

In this section we only discuss a few of such researches. Among them, a number of studies on this issue have been carried out using the data on social indicators of South Africa. South Africa was well-known for its racial and ethnic discrimination, and the shameful apartheid policies existed till early 1990s. Soon after the end of apartheid, the first democratically elected government of South Africa produced the representative household survey including all South African communities to measure the depth and breadth of poverty. Based on this household survey, it is found that the richest 7% possesses 40% of the country’s income whereas half the population receives only 11% of South Africa’s total annual income and falls below the poverty line (May, 2000; SAHDR 2003). It is argued that this high level of inequality and poverty is a legacy of South Africa’s colonial and apartheid past (Ross, 1999; Glaser, 2000, 2001; Aliber,

Historically, professions and economic activities are linked with race popularly known as caste system. People are strongly prohibited to change the occupation across different caste groups. A strong hierarchy is maintained not only in economic activities, but also in other aspects of life. This caste system has severe impact on individual’s capability and wellbeing. This caste system and racial classification is so deep rooted in the society that government has taken several measures to protect the right of lower castes and religious minorities and the situation is improving over time. Yet, the presence of discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, and religion is found in several