Inequality has defi ned South Africa’s political economy historically
and continues to be an intractable reality, with race, class, gender, and
geographic dimensions. This chapter traces trends in interpersonal
and inter-regional inequality within South Africa since the establishment
of a democratic state in 1994. Since it is a trends study, the data
used is from a range of years between 1994 and 2010, rather than
only the most recent. The chapter further reviews key aspects of the
co-evolution of the innovation system, side by side with current and
historical inequality in the science, engineering and technology (SET)
workforce and inequality in the benefi ts of innovation output.
Poverty and inequality can be examined from at least fi ve perspectives,
namely income, assets, services, infrastructure, and knowledge
(Moser 1998; Angang and Chunbo 2001; Satterthwaite 2004). The
examination in this chapter will touch on a few of these perspectives,
including patterns of inequality in income, housing assets, health and
education services and knowledge and innovation infrastructure.