The wages of Mandela

 

The Economist has produced a graph which shows incomes in South Africa by racial group from 1918 to the present day, which is the lifespan of Nelson Mandela. These are their blunt conclusions:

Income growth improved substantially for all South Africans after Mandela’s 1994 election victory, but sufficiently more so for whites, and the balance has been disproportionately weighted in their favour—and increasingly that of Asian South Africans—since he stepped down in 1999. Under its own majority rule, the lot of the ever-growing black population—today forming over three-quarters of the national total—has been notably poor. Misguided governance, low-quality education, skills shortages and massive unemployment levels of around 40% have left it more disadvantaged today than when Nelson Mandela was still behind bars. Black income has virtually flat-lined, betraying tremendous gulfs between the wealth of the different racial groups. Sadly, the nation Mandela leaves behind today remains one of the most unequal in the world.

If you look at their graph, all they say is true, and they have correctly described what they have drawn. However, they strongly imply that with better governance and better education things would be far better, and Mandela must shoulder part of the blame. I am not opposed to criticism of politicians, but before judging this particular one I have a few questions.  Why are there skill shortages? Why are there so many unemployed citizens? What are black wages like in the rest of Africa?

 

Three different estimates put South Africa on a GDP per capita level of about $4,000 which is equivalent to Botswana, which is generally judged one of the best governed in sub-Saharan Africa, with high levels of honesty and transparency for doing business (about 4th in the world at last count). At a higher level of GDP are Seychelles and Mauritius, but South Africa is near the top of the lists on all GDP estimates. Frankly, if South Africa is close to the top, in the company of Botswana, then it is hard to point the finger at South African black governments for black income levels.

What other differences can we find between whites, asians, mixed race and black citizens in South Africa? To put it mildly, over a century the first three groups have had some babies, but the last group has had many babies.  The black population has risen from about 3 million to about 40 million. That creates opportunities, no doubt, but it creates a lot of competition for jobs, unless the economy is exceptionally well managed in the global market place. (At the same latitude further to the West, over the same time period Uruguay grew from 1.4 to 3.4 million, GDP per capita is $15,800).

Perhaps I have misjudged The Economist. Perhaps they had a conference and after a big row came up with a compromise between the graphics and the editorial department. Each would tell their story, and the readers could work things out for themselves. After all, a separation of wages according to skill levels is entirely consistent with an open, flourishing economy in which everyone seeks opportunity, to the best of their ability.

What else might The Economist have mentioned?

S.Africa -whites	15	1,056	SPM	94	Owen, 1992
S.Africa-blacks	10/12	293	AAB	65	Fick,1929
S.Africa-blacks	12–14	80	KB	68	Dent, 1937
S.Africa-blacks	10-16	532	Non-verbal	72	Fick, 1939
S.Africa-blacks	8/16	1,008	SPM	75	Notcutt,1950
S.Africa-blacks	Adults	703	SPM	70	Notcutt,1950
S.Africa-blacks	6–10	1,076	DAM	75	Hunkin, 1950
S.Africa-blacks	10–12	278	NVR	74	Lloyd & Pidgeon, 1961
S.Africa-blacks	25	140	WAIS-R	69	Avenant, 1988
S.Africa-blacks	5–13	415	DAM	75	Richter et al., 1989
S.Africa-blacks	9	350	SPM	67	Lynn & Holmshaw, 1990
S.Africa-blacks	16	1,096	SPM	68	Owen, 1992
S.Africa-blacks	15–16	1,093	JAT	68	Lynn & Owen, 1994
S.Africa-blacks	13	49	WISC-R	70	Murdoch, 1994
S.Africa-blacks	17-20	140	SPM	77	Maqsud, 1997
S.Africa-blacks	43	157	WAIS-R/WISC-3	68	Nell, 2000
S.Africa-blacks	16	17	SPM	68	Sonke, 2000
S.Africa-blacks	8	63	WPPSI/ WCST	71	Akande, 2000
S.Africa-blacks	14	152	WCST/WISC-R	65	Skuy et al., 2001
S.Africa-blacks	17	100	WCST/WISC-R/DAM	65	Skuy et al., 2001
S.Africa-blacks	30	196	WAIS-3	82	Claassen et al., 2001
S.Africa-blacks	8–10	806	CPM	68	Jinabhai et al., 2004
S.Africa-blacks	19	711	CPM	71	Vass,1992
S.Africa-blacks	11	379	CPM	71	Knoetze et al., 2005
S.Africa-blacks	6-12	1,333	CPM	71	Linstrom, 2008
S.Africa-blacks	9	340	SPM	69	Malda et al., 2010
S.Africa -colored	10/12	6,196	AAB	83	Fick,1929
S.Africa -colored	13	815	GSAT	86	Claassen,1990
S.Africa -colored	15	778	SPM	80	Owen,1992
S.Africa -Indians	10/12	762	AAB	77	Fick, 1929
S.Africa -Indians	18	284	GFT	88	Taylor & Radford, 1986
S.Africa -Indians	6/8	600	JSAIS	86	Landman, 1988
S.Africa -Indians	15	1,063	SPM	91	Owen, 1992
S.Africa -Indians	15	1,063	JAT	83	Lynn & Owen, 1994
South Africa: median				72

The most recent detailed debate about sub-Saharan intelligence is between Richard Lynn (who gathered the list above) and Jelte Wicherts, who puts the figure closer to 82, but certainly not at European levels. Their argument was basically about the representativeness of samples, particularly to what extent one should include college samples in the national estimates, which will probably be significantly above the local average, and will unfairly boost those estimates.

If you don’t like intelligence scores, then look at PISA 2012 (page 5). http://www.oecd.org/pisa/keyfindings/pisa-2012-results-overview.pdf

In their home countries Asians score in the high 500s and Europeans in the 470 to 520 range. United Arab Emirates 434, Tunisia 388, Qatar 376. No sub-Saharan countries participated. In the past Botswana took part in TIMSS and their score of 364 was very low, but better than that obtained by Kuwait, El Salvador, Saudi Arabia, Ghana and Qatar, so all power to them for having taken part.

As I have observed before, it would appear that as the global economy takes over the world, many nations will be left with both skills shortages and unemployment. Governments are not to blame for everything.