Sunday 8 December 2013

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.

3 comments:

  1. "Skills" get mentioned here too.
    http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/12/would-you-rather-be-born-smart-or-rich/281828/

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for post. I suggest labeling the columns of the table, although I figured out the column 5 is the average IQ corresponding to column 1.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sample, sample age, sample size, test given, adjusted IQ, authors and date of publication. Thanks for the reminder.

    ReplyDelete