Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/243408 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2021
Series/Report no.: 
WIDER Working Paper No. 2021/82
Publisher: 
The United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), Helsinki
Abstract: 
Overall income inequality in South Africa is very high, and inequality generated in the labour market is a key driver of inequality. In this paper, I use the Post-Apartheid Labour Market Series, the General Household Surveys, and administrative tax microdata to describe earnings inequality in South Africa. I estimate Gini coefficients, the variance of log earnings, and various percentile ratios to document changes in earnings inequality. I show that earnings inequality estimates from the Quarterly Labour Force Surveys are unreliable, most likely as a result of the earnings imputations in the publicly available data from Statistics South Africa. I also use the tax microdata to document the contributions of within- and between-firm differences to overall earnings inequality.
Subjects: 
inequality
earnings
administrative tax microdata
surveys
South Africa
JEL: 
D31
J31
O15
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
ISBN: 
978-92-9267-020-7
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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