South Africa’s inequality is often described in economic terms. But its persistence is political. Despite expanded redistribution and social spending, inequality remains among the highest in the world. The durability of these disparities reflects not only the structural legacy of apartheid, but also the narratives and power dynamics that shape reform coalitions today. Addressing inequality requires more than redistribution—it requires consensus, trust, and the political will to confront both history and present incentives.
If redistribution has grown, why does structural inequality endure?
A recent discussion hosted by the Economic Thematic Group around the documentary Legacy: Apartheid’s Shadow returned repeatedly to this question. The film traces how decisions made under apartheid continue to shape opportunity, institutions, and accountability today. But what emerged most clearly from our conversation with the film’s producer, Tara Moore, and our panelists, Brian Levy and Peter Ellis, was this: inequality in South Africa is not sustained primarily by fiscal policy. It is sustained by structure—and reinforced by narrative.
Redistribution Operates Downstream
Fiscal redistribution matters—it cushions shocks and reduces hardship. But it operates downstream from deeper drivers of inequality: access to land, where people live, school quality, labor market access, social networks, race and parental background, and institutional capacity. These pre-distributive foundations shape opportunity long before the tax system intervenes.
Apartheid engineered many of these foundations deliberately—through spatial segregation, unequal education systems, and exclusion from assets and opportunity. Political transition transformed the constitutional order in 1994. But institutional, social, and spatial structures are more durable than laws. Cities do not redesign themselves quickly. School quality does not equalize in a generation. Labor markets do not rebalance without sustained reform. Trust across groups previously divided by race does not emerge automatically.
This does not absolve post-apartheid governance of responsibility. Policy missteps, corruption, and implementation failures have affected outcomes. But focusing exclusively on contemporary failures risks obscuring the architecture within which those failures unfold. And this is where narrative becomes central.
The Narrative Question
A striking theme in our discussion was the persistence of a public narrative among some that attributes South Africa’s current economic and governance challenges primarily to majority rule and the democratic settlement. In this framing, underperformance is treated largely as a product of post-1994 governance rather than of structural inheritance.
When inequality and institutional weakness are understood mainly as recent failures, historical design recedes into the background. Spatial fragmentation, unequal land distribution, and persistent education gaps risk being treated as context rather than constraint.
The consequences are not merely rhetorical. Narratives shape reform coalitions. If segments of society see present challenges as detached from structural legacy, support for deeper—and often disruptive—reforms weakens. Corruption illustrates the point. If some see the state primarily as the product of “other people’s rule,” while others view corruption as the legacy of structural exclusion, the social compact weakens. Each side may view reform as unnecessary or unfairly burdensome. Structural change—whether in spatial planning, land policy, education systems, or local governance—requires cross-community buy-in and recognition that inequality was engineered and must be addressed collectively.
Institutions and Social Cohesion
Apartheid’s legacy also affects trust and social cohesion, shaping society’s ability to tackle difficult challenges. Where inequality remains spatially visible—where communities are physically separated, schools segregated by income, and services uneven—social cohesion erodes. Without cohesion, reform coalitions fragment and the ability to work together weakens.
From Fragmentation to Collective Action
Yet, today’s constraints go beyond narrative alone, as highlighted in the discussion. Post-1994 efforts to promote growth and correct historical exclusion have created new centers of influence within the state, business, and organized labor. As in many transitional societies, groups that benefit from emerging arrangements can become cautious about reforms that threaten their position. Building consensus for change therefore requires confronting both the legacy of apartheid and contemporary distributions of power.
From Macro Reform to Local Integration
The discussion also highlighted something more practical: narrative shifts are reinforced by lived experience.
National rhetoric alone cannot build social cohesion. Integration must be practiced. Mixed neighborhoods, integrated schools, inclusive local planning processes, and community-driven initiatives create shared spaces where inherited divisions soften. These interactions reshape perception, build relationships across race and class, and make inequality a collective challenge rather than an abstract statistic.
Community development cannot dismantle structural inequality on its own. But it can rebuild trust—the foundation on which institutional reform depends. When cooperation is experienced in practice, resistance to shared responsibility weakens.
Building consensus for structural change
Inequality in South Africa was engineered over generations. Its repair will require broad-based, generational commitment. That commitment depends not only on confronting the structural legacy of apartheid, but also on aligning contemporary incentives with the public interest. Doing so will require greater transparency, stronger accountability across the state, private sector, and civil society, and sustained efforts to rebuild trust and social cohesion—within communities and across the nation.
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* Louise Cord is co-chair of the Economics Thematic Group at the 1818 Society. and the former Director of the Social Sustainability and Inclusion Global Practice in the World Bank.
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KEYWORDS apartheid, inequality, South Africa
