Black middle class drives South Africa’s economic growth as new tensions arise
South Africa’s black middle classes have surpassed their white counterparts in number over the past eight years and are now seen as the driving force behind the country’s economic growth.
While the African National Congress-led government still has major challenges to overcome when it comes to improving the lives of the country’s poor majority, millions of black South Africans have advanced into the middle-class category since apartheid ended in 1994.
Although it is difficult to quantify their exact number, the Unilever Institute – a nonprofit organisation based at the University of Cape Town – recently estimated the black middle class had grown from just under 1.7 million in 2004 to 4.2 million in 2012.