Algunas Aplicaciones Inmediatas

7.1 INTRODUCTION

South Africa, like the rest of the world, felt the impact of the volatility of the world markets between 2007 and 2009. In particular, steep food and fuel prices, high energy tariffs and increasing interest rates have placed severe pressure on ordinary South Africans already struggling to meet their basic household needs. For example, the price of rice has more than doubled since 2007 and that of wheat, pasta, soya and other staple foods have soared. South Africa’s rural poor is most affected with 62 percent of them spending their disposable income on food (Dlamini, 2008). Statistics South Africa argued that the increase in the headline inflation rate between April and May 2008 can be attributed to increases of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for food and transport.19 In addition, the Competition Commission has uncovered a food price fixing scam by big companies, which is further exacerbating the food crisis and over-burdening the poor. These adverse living conditions elicited criticism from all sectors of South African society. For example, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) is of the view that the South African government’s policy of interest rates hikes has had a disastrous impact on the people of South Africa. Cosatu argued that the rate hikes contributed substantially to the slowing down of the South African economy, with devastating consequences such as job losses and increased poverty (Craven, 2007). The Policy Head in the Presidency also indirectly acknowledged that social grants, particularly pension and child support grants, with their current value fail to effectively cushion the poor against the ravages of this price hike wave (Pressly, 2008). Furthermore, the investment study for the Office of the President previously highlighted that South Africa’s “levels of mass poverty represents a major constraint to investment, as investors regard the situation as unsustainable” (Naidoo, 2002: 3).

It is against these unstable and deteriorating living conditions that Cosatu warned of food riots as witnessed in other parts of the world. For instance, violent protests were observed in many countries, including Egypt, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Ethiopia, Madagascar, the Philippines and Indonesia as a result of the sharp rise of the cost of basic foods in the first few months of 2008 (SAPA, 2008). Unsurprisingly, Cosatu, in July 2008 organized a protest march against rising costs, which was followed by nation-wide protest action in August 2008. Between June and July 2009 a spate of protest actions over service delivery, unemployment and poverty lead to violent clashes between the police and protestors. For example, people protesting under the newly formed “South African Unemployed People’s Movement” (SAUPM) looted shops for food and demanded that government provide free education, better public health care, and a R1500 monthly grant for the unemployed (AFP, 2009). During the same period the South African Municipal Workers’ Union (SAMWU) and the Independent Municipal and Allied Trade Union (IMATU) embarked on a nationwide municipal strike to demand a 15 percent wage increase. These municipal strikes were also marked by violence and damage to public property (Prince, Dentlinger, & SAPA, 2009: 5).

Although these violent protests are unacceptable and criticized by government, I believe the protesters gained some justification for their actions when Statistics South Africa announced that the unemployment rate rose to 23.5 percent in the first quarter of 2009 from 21.9 percent in the previous three months. More specifically, a total of 208 000 people living in South Africa lost their jobs between the last quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009 (SAPA, 2009).

This brief introduction of the current global economic crisis and its impact on South Africa is important because I feel it has a direct bearing on the manner and pace at which the South African government responds to the challenges (including wide spread poverty) it faces. In view of the aforementioned, I briefly outline how this study was conducted and then summarize the key findings that emerged from the analyses. The chapter concludes with a set of recommendations that may enhance South Africa’s efforts to eradicate poverty.

7.2 OVERVIEW OF THE DISSERTATION

The main focus of this dissertation is to explore how people perceive the causes of poverty. I therefore contextualize in Chapter 1 the importance of a study on poverty. I emphasize that South Africa like most other African countries is also faced with the daunting task of eradicating poverty.

I argue in Chapter 2 that the way one conceptualizes and defines poverty has an impact on how you perceive and interpret the results as well on how comparisons are made with other studies. I also discuss in Chapter 2 the different approaches of how poverty is conceptualized and defined. In addition, I review the key poverty research and projects within South Africa.

In Chapter 3 I review the literature on perceptions of the causes of poverty in order to highlight that poverty is a complex phenomenon that influences the lives of people in a multidimensional manner. In brief, the literature showed that perceptions of poverty differ according to: individualistic perceptions, where blame is placed squarely on the poor themselves; structural perceptions, where poverty is blamed on external social and economic forces; and fatalistic perceptions, which attribute poverty to factors such as bad luck or illness. Furthermore, research has shown that these perceptions interact with socio-economic and demographic variables such as race, geographical location, education, and employment. I therefore critically examine perceptions of the causes of poverty among South Africans as measured by individualistic, structural and fatalistic dimensions and its interaction with these socio-economic and demographic variables.

I explain in Chapter 4 the research design and methodology that was followed in this study to examine people’s perceptions of the causes of poverty. More specifically, I employ a national representative survey of 3510 adults aged 18 and older. This survey was conducted by the Human Sciences Research Council between 18 April and 30 May 2006.