South African Social Attitudes Survey Research Articles

‘Minding the Just Gap’: Perceptions of the Legitimacy of Income Inequality from the South African Social Attitudes Survey

ABSTRACT This article explores perceptions of the legitimacy of income inequality in South Africa, looking at the ‘just income gap’: salaries considered to be fair for occupations at opposite ends of the status continuum. Data from the 2009 and 2016 waves of the South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS) were analysed. Findings on perceived actual and ethical wages for five occupations indicated that, although South Africans feel that those on the low end of the wage continuum deserve a substantial increase in income, fairly high, occupationally specific levels of wage inequality were deemed legitimate. The ‘just gap’ was heavily influenced by perceptions of particular occupations and the ‘ethical calibre’ of people assumed to work in those sectors, with high public sector salaries perceived as illegitimate based on perceptions of corruption. South Africans accepted fairly high levels of inequality but favoured higher incomes for the poor and limits on corporate sector salaries.

Worlds Apart: Social Attitudes to Restitution in South Africa

Given the urgency of redressing South Africa’s unjust legacies of the past, we interrogate the nature of support and opposition to restitution in South Africa. Informed by responses to the nationally representative South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS), we contend that South Africa remains deeply polarised when it comes to addressing these unjust legacies, with race being the major fault line. When it comes to restitution, South Africans are worlds apart on three levels. We are worlds apart across racial groups; we are worlds apart within racial groups, and we are worlds apart in the kind of language we wish to use in framing our pursuit of equality. In the final analysis, while South Africans may be unified in the acknowledgement that the inequality gap is too high, and perhaps even unified in a desire for change, there is a fundamental disagreement about the desirable vehicles we hope to employ.

The importance of being African: public attitudes towards immigration selection in South Africa

ABSTRACT The African Union wants to make ‘being African' an important immigration admission criterion amongst its member states. This would be a large-scale change to border control in South Africa, altering the nation’s symbolic boundaries. But what do ordinary South Africans think about this change? And what are the determinants of public support for drawing boundaries in this way? Using data from the South African Social Attitudes Survey, this paper argues that social identity is one of the primary drivers of how people think about this issue. This outcome showcases the way identity politics drives South African attitudes towards border control.

The Anxious and the Climbers: Ambivalent Attitudes towards Democracy among South Africa’s Middle Class

Albeit middle-class citizens have generally been assumed to support democracy, studies investigating this class’s political attitudes using survey data have produced mixed results. This paper argues that one reason for these ambiguities is that the middle class may not be a homogenous group. Specifically, I explore how diverging perceptions of social mobility tend to condition political attitudes towards democracy within different social strata, particularly within the middle class. Drawing upon data from the South African Social Attitudes Survey, the article finds no strong evidence of any middle-class particularism in people’s opinions about democracy. Rather, the main difference in democratic attitudes and civic values is detected between those persistently locked in poverty and the rest of the population. Interestingly, the upwardly mobile ‘escapers’ and the ‘climbers’ show significantly higher levels of trust in public institutions and tend to display higher beliefs in voting as an effective tool to influence politics compared to both the persistently poor and the ‘anxious’ middle class, between whom no significant difference is found. These empirical findings demonstrate the limits to understanding people’s political attitudes in relation to their current standard of living alone.

Nicotine dependence, socioeconomic status, lifestyle behaviours and lifetime quit attempts among adult smokers in South Africa.

Smoking cessation is a complex process influenced by factors such as smokers' nicotine dependence levels, socioeconomic status (SES) and other lifestyle behaviours. Little is known about these relationships in South Africa (SA). To explore the relationship between nicotine dependence, SES, lifestyle behaviours and lifetime quit attempts among adult smokers in SA. This study used data from 2 651 participants aged ≥16 years in the 2011 South African Social Attitudes Survey. Information on SES (measured by asset ownership), binge drinking, physical activity, fruit and vegetable intake, intention to quit smoking and lifetime quit attempts was extracted. Nicotine dependence was measured using the Heaviness of Smoking Index (HSI). All data were weighted to account for the complex survey design and to yield nationally representative estimates. Data analysis included binary logistic regression with high nicotine dependence (HND) defined as HSI ≥4 and lifetime quit attempts as separate outcomes. The prevalence of smoking was 20.1% (31.6% for males and 9.5% for females), and was highest in the mixed-ancestry group (37.0%). Overall, 14.5% of smokers had HND, with a higher proportion in the high-SES group. The odds of HND increased with every 10 years of smoking history (odds ratio (OR) 2.05; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.40 - 3.00) but decreased among participants who reported frequent physical activity (OR 0.4; 95% CI 0.18 - 0.86) and those who planned to quit (OR 0.37; 95% CI 0.19 - 0.75). Quit attempts were more likely among participants who reported frequent fruit and vegetable intake (OR 1.8; 95% CI 1.07 - 2.98) and less likely among those reporting binge drinking (OR 0.31; 95% CI 0.16 - 0.59) or assessed as having HND (OR 0.32; 95% CI 0.17 - 0.58). Most adult smokers in SA have low nicotine dependence. However, the association of HND with high SES in this study suggests that although cessation treatment based on an integrated lifestyle behavioural intervention package may suffice for most smokers, a more intense cessation treatment package is needed for smokers of higher SES.

South African abortion attitudes from 2007-2016: the roles of religiosity and attitudes toward sexuality and gender equality

ABSTRACT Abortion is legal in South Africa, but negative abortion attitudes remain common and are poorly understood. We used nationally representative South African Social Attitudes Survey data to analyze abortion attitudes in the case of fetal anomaly and in the case of poverty from 2007 to 2016 (n = 20,711; ages = 16+). We measured correlations between abortion attitudes and these important predictors: religiosity, attitudes about premarital sex, attitudes about preferential hiring and promotion of women, and attitudes toward family gender roles. Abortion acceptability for poverty increased over time (b = 0.05, p < .001), but not for fetal anomaly (b = −0.008, p = .284). Highly religious South Africans reported lower abortion acceptability in both cases (Odds Ratio (OR)anomaly = 0.85, p = .015; ORpoverty = 0.84, p = .02). Premarital sex acceptability strongly and positively predicted abortion acceptability (ORanomaly = 2.63, p < .001; ORpoverty = 2.46, p < .001). Attitudes about preferential hiring and promotion of women were not associated with abortion attitudes, but favorable attitudes about working mothers were positively associated with abortion acceptability for fetal anomaly ((ORanomaly = 1.09, p = .01; ORpoverty = 1.02, p = .641)). Results suggest negative abortion attitudes remain common in South Africa and are closely tied to religiosity, traditional ideologies about sexuality, and gender role expectations about motherhood.

The ‘Fuck White People’ Phenomenon in South Africa: A Discursive and Statistical Analysis

ABSTRACTDuring the recent student protests in South Africa ‘fuck white people’ appeared on T-shirts and walls. When understood only as anti-white sentiments, these words could cause panic and fear. However, we need to determine the extent to which these opinions are shared, by whom, and what should be done to people who propagated these views. To address these questions, an item was inserted in the 2016 nationally representative South African Social Attitudes Survey (n = 2988). An overwhelming majority of the adult population (96%) expressed a clear preference for how this phenomenon should be addressed. Of this, 26% recommended that those wearing/writing this phrase should be informed that they are hampering the prospects of peaceful coexistence between different race groups (the social cohesion argument), while 39% advocated refrain from such rhetoric. 16% adopted a retributive stance and little more than a tenth (13%) non-interventionist. Only a nominal proportion (2%) believed such behaviour ‘should be praised’ for drawing attention to persisting white privilege in South African society. We discuss these findings and their socio-demographic variations discursively, as part of ‘white fragility’ and ‘rainbow nation mythology’, observing the provocative and productive dimensions of this phenomenon.

Understanding xenophobic hate crime in South Africa

Hundreds of violent incidents of anti‐immigrant hate crimes have been recorded in South Africa over the past two decades. Understanding how the public views this issue helps us better understand how it can be resolved. The paper identifies determinants of public attitudes towards anti‐xenophobia strategies. Data from the South African Social Attitudes Survey for the period 2015–2018 were used for this study. Using these data, the link between anti‐immigrant sentiment and lay attributes of anti‐immigrant violence can be mapped. The results show that most citizens externalise the causes of this kind of hate crime and blame the victims (i.e., foreigners) for the conflict. What people believe about the etiology of an intergroup conflict was found to influence their desire for conflict resolution as well as the type of solutions preferred. Victim blaming was found to predict the adoption of prejudicial solutions to anti‐immigrant hate crime (such as the mass expulsion of foreign nationals). If an individual attributed the violence to the internal attributes (e.g., emotional factors or beliefs about foreign nationals) of the perpetrators, they were more likely to adopt progressive solutions (such as education and awareness campaigns).

Trends and socio-economic inequality in public perceptions of healthcare delivery in South Africa.

To assess trends and inequality in public perceptions of healthcare delivery as reported by South African households. Secondary data analysis of the South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS). Nationally representative weighted sample of South African households. 28326 household representatives interviewed during the annual SASAS survey (2007-16). Adequacy of healthcare services and satisfaction with healthcare delivery. On aggregate, 68.2% only of households reported their healthcare needs as being adequately met, while only 54.3% were satisfied with healthcare delivery. In total, only 41.5% of households was both satisfied with healthcare delivery and adequately provided for in terms of the household's healthcare needs. Adequacy of healthcare provision and satisfaction therewith has however improved rapidly since 2009-10, but overall satisfaction with healthcare delivery has not changed considerably. Public perceptions of healthcare delivery improved with household wealth. Socio-economic inequality in adequacy and satisfaction is pronounced and pro-rich, but inequality in satisfaction has declined significantly since 2009-10. Although public perceptions of healthcare delivery improved, many poor South Africans' healthcare needs are still not adequately met. In addition, many South Africans are not satisfied with government's efforts at healthcare delivery, especially the poor. Further research is required to pinpoint how expectations impact on public perceptions of healthcare delivery and to identify the specific factors that underlie the public opinions expressed in surveys of this nature.

Associational Life and 'the Dark Side' of Social Capital in South Africa: A Quantitative Analysis of Anti-immigrant Behaviour

Non-institutionalised anti-immigrant activity is a growing problem in many parts of the world, including Africa, and sometimes this activity can turn violent. Strengthening and reinvigorating associational life can seem like a panacea for this particular problem. Despite the theoretical expectations of the neo-Tocquevillian approach, however, the empirical evidence for a statistical relationship between associational involvement and tolerance is contested. In this article, the author looks at the relationship between participation in voluntary associations and engagement in a range of different xenophobic activities in South Africa. In the last twenty years, there have been a series of anti-immigrant incidents in that country. Nationally representative public opinion data from the 2017 round of the South African Social Attitudes Survey (N= 3098) was used for this study. The author shows that the frequency of associational involvement has a positive effect on public participation in a range of anti-immigrant behaviours. These empirical results contribute to our understanding of the ‘dark side’ of social capital and challenge existing assumptions about the formation of societal tolerance in an African setting. The outcomes of this study provoke some serious questions about how we can build more tolerant societies and have significant implications for anti-xenophobia interventions.

The Popularity of State Discourses on Anti-Immigrant Violence in South Africa

ABSTRACTOver the last 20 years South Africa has experienced a surge in anti-immigrant violence. For at least the last 10 years, the state-sanctioned interpretation of this violence was as follows: it is ‘just crime’ and not motivated by any type of xenophobic sentiment. This interpretive scheme has been challenged by commentators of all stripes. This article examines the popularity of the government’s interpretation of anti-immigrant violence by looking at nationally representative public opinion data from the 2017 and 2018 rounds of the South African Social Attitudes Survey (N = 5,983). The government’s ‘just crime’ discourse was found to be unpopular and other interpretative schemes were much more prevalent amongst the general population. The article will explore what these interpretations tell us about national myth-making in the country.

Subjective social status and inequalities in depressive symptoms: a gender-specific decomposition analysis for South Africa

BackgroundInequalities in mental health are a notable and well documented policy concern in many countries, including South Africa. Individuals’ perception of their position in the social hierarchy is strongly and negatively related to their mental health, whilst the global burden of poor mental health is greater amongst women. This paper offers a first glimpse of the factors that shape gender-based health inequalities across subjective social status.MethodsThis study employs the cross-sectional 2014 South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS). The prevalence of depressive symptoms is measured with the aid of the CES-D 8-item scale, with analyses disaggregated by gender. Concentration indices (CI) are used to measure inequalities in depressive symptoms related to subjective social status. The study applies the Wagstaff decomposition to determine the factors that contribute to these gender-based inequalities.ResultsMore than 26% of the study sample had depressive symptoms (95% CI 24.92–28.07). The prevalence of depressive symptoms is significantly more pronounced in females (28.46% versus 24.38%; p = 0.011). The concentration index for depressive symptoms is − 0.276 (95% CI -0.341 – − 0.211), showing large inequalities across subjective social status. The observed SSS-related inequality in depressive symptoms however is higher for males (CI = -0.304) when compared to females (CI = -0.240) (p = 0.056). The most important contributor to SSS-related inequalities in depressive symptoms, at 61%, is subjective social status itself (contributing 82% in females versus 44% in males). Other variables that make large contributions to the inequalities in depressive symptoms at 11% each are race (contributing 2% in females versus 25% in males) and childhood conflict (contributing 17% in females versus 4% in males).ConclusionPolicy makers should target a reduction in the positive contribution of SSS to depression via the implementation of programmes that improve social welfare. Given the much greater contribution to inequalities among females, these policies should target women. Policies that protect children and especially the girl child from conflict can also be useful in reducing inequalities in depression related to subjective social status during adulthood. Overall, there is need for a multi-sectoral approach to address these inequalities.

Attitudes toward abortion, social welfare programs, and gender roles in the U.S. and South Africa

ABSTRACT Public abortion attitudes are important predictors of abortion stigma and accessibility, even in legal settings like the U.S. and South Africa. With data from the U.S. General Social Survey and South African Social Attitudes Survey, we used ordinal logistic regressions to measure whether abortion acceptability (in cases of poverty and fetal anomaly) is related to attitudes about social welfare programs and gender roles, then assessed differences by race/ethnicity and education. Social welfare program attitudes did not correlate with abortion acceptability in the U.S., but in South Africa, greater support for income equalization (OR: 0.59, 95% CI: 0.41–0.85) and increased government spending on the poor (OR: 0.66, 95% CI: 0.49–0.91) correlated with lower abortion acceptability in circumstances of poverty. This was significant for Black African and higher educated South Africans. In the U.S., egalitarian gender role attitudes correlated with higher acceptability of abortion in circumstances of poverty (OR: 1.18, 95% CI: 1.03–1.36) and fetal anomaly (OR: 1.15, 95% CI: 1.01–1.31). This was significant for White and less educated Americans. In South Africa, egalitarian gender role attitudes correlated with higher abortion acceptability for fetal anomaly (OR: 1.12, 95% CI: 1.01–1.25) overall and among Black and less educated respondents, but among non-Black South Africans they correlated with higher abortion acceptability in circumstances of poverty. These results suggest abortion attitudes are distinctly related to socioeconomic and gender ideology depending one’s national context, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. Reducing abortion stigma will require community-based approaches rooted in intersectional reproductive justice frameworks.

A violent minority? A quantitative analysis of those engaged in anti-immigrant violence in South Africa

ABSTRACTXenophobic violence poses a clear threat to South Africa, especially in light of the country’s treaty commitments to ‘open borders’ following the 30th Ordinary Assembly of the African Union. Civil society organizations have been highly critical of government efforts to prevent xenophobic violence in the country. The aim of this study is to profile the determinants of individual participation in anti-immigrant violence. The article focused on both past and potential participation in this type of behaviour. My central thesis is that there is a robust correlation between involvement in peaceful organized anti-immigrant activities (e.g. boycotts and demonstrations) and participation in xenophobic violence. For this study, data from the 2015–2017 rounds of the South African Social Attitudes Survey (N = 9,292) was utilized. Bivariate and multivariate techniques were used to show that past and potential involvement in violent behaviour was strongly correlated with previous experience with peaceful anti-immigrant activity. By moving beyond a narrow focus on fixed episodes of collective violence, this article demonstrates the importance of a geographical analysis of xenophobic behaviour. However, there are limitations to the dataset used for this study and the article concludes by outlining future areas of research.

Black South Africans’ Attitudes toward African Immigrants between 2008 and 2016

Instead of the term “xenophobia,” the dislike of immigrants, the term “Afrophobia” is increasingly being used to describe black South Africans’ hatred of the African other. This study analyzed nine rounds of the South African Social Attitudes Survey (2008–2016) in order to assess the evidence for Afrophobia among black South Africans. The evidence of Afrophobia among black South Africans is unconvincing. Black South Africans evinced different attitudes toward different groups of foreigners. Instead of simplistic explanations for anti-immigrant sentiment, there is a need for a more detailed and nuanced analysis of why some immigrant groups are more disliked than others.

Understanding the attitude–behaviour relationship: a quantitative analysis of public participation in anti-immigrant violence in South Africa

Xenophobic violence is a fundamental obstacle to the mental, social, and economic wellbeing of international migrants living and working in South Africa. Currently, there is substantial contention on what determines participation in this type of behaviour. This article looks at the role of perceived threat and whether such attitudes are driving both past participation and potential participation in anti-immigrant violence. Data from three rounds (2015–2017) of the South African Social Attitudes Survey ( N = 9,292) was used for this study. Although a majority were found not to have taken part in violence, many people indicated a willingness to consider participating in anti-immigrant violence in the future. A multivariate (multinomial) regression approach was employed to identify those factors most associated with violent participation. Perceived threat was shown to be a robust predictor of potential participation in violence. This suggests that anti-immigrant perceptions could have a mobilising effect, spurring individuals towards acts of violent xenophobia.

Choice of language in education: do we know what South Africans want?

A key factor in providing quality education is the main language of instruction (M-LoI). This creates a challenging situation for education policymakers in post-colonial multilingual countries such as South Africa. Language-in-education policies must valorise indigenous languages and redress their exclusion in past education systems while ensuring access to any economic opportunities afforded by colonial languages. Public attitudes have a bearing on individuals’ interactions with language policy as well as the education system as a whole. This article examines attitudes towards the M-LoI in education. Data from the South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS) for the period 2003–2016 were used. We hypothesised that preferences for M-LoI would be associated with support for other forms of societal racial transformation in South Africa. However, a majority of the general population favoured English as the M-LoI in education and M-LoI preferences were not related to the degree of support for other forms of racial transformation. The limitations of the SASAS dataset and current method are then described and possibilities for new research presented. The article concludes by discussing how post-colonial education policies and implementation can nurture multilingualism and promote the valorising of indigenous languages.

Afrophobia in Mzansi? Evidence from the 2013 South African Social Attitudes Survey

The term ‘Afrophobia’, implying fear of the African, has come to mean the hatred of the African other, and is increasingly being used in the literature and popular media to describe the negative attitudes of black South Africans towards African immigrants. These negative attitudes towards other Africans are in contrast to the more positive attitudes towards white immigrants from Europe and America. This emerging literature also suggests that black South Africans have more positive attitudes towards black foreigners with whom they share a language. This article uses data from the 2013 Social Attitudes Survey to assess the evidence for Afrophobia, with further analysis of gender and ethnicity. The results suggest that the term Afrophobia does not usefully describe black South Africans’ attitudes towards African immigrants. This article argues that South Africans have different attitudes towards immigrants from different countries. Also, the relationship between black South Africans’ attitudes and the immigrants’ ethnicity was not a straightforward one. Some immigrant groups that spoke a ‘South African language’ were among the black foreigners most disliked by those black South Africans with whom they shared a language. The study suggests the need for a more detailed and nuanced analysis of attitudes that understands the heterogeneous nature of black South Africans (and African immigrants) and goes beyond generalising terms such as ‘Afrophobia’ and ‘ethnic affinity’, which, based on the evidence, may be of limited use in understanding why some African immigrants are more disliked than others.

The Best and Worst Times of Life for South Africans: Evidence of Universal Reference Standards in Evaluations of Personal Well-Being Using Bernheim’s ACSA

Bernheim’s self-anchoring Anamnestic Comparative Self-Assessment (ACSA) measure of personal well-being was applied for the first time in South Africa in 2012 in the nationally representative South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS). The SASAS study of ACSA followed on earlier pilot and community studies conducted in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. Survey respondents described in their own words the best and worst periods in their lives, which serve as the anchors of the ACSA scale. Respondents’ descriptions of these periods were classified by life domain based on the standard ACSA multiple-choice list (Theuns et al. in: Michalos (ed) Encyclopedia of quality of life and well-being research, Springer, Dordrecht, pp 166–169, 2014). Findings from the study suggest that reference standards matter for the evaluation of personal well-being. Social and material domains represented the dominant choice of reference standards for ACSA ratings. Higher ACSA scores tended to be associated with social reference standards related to the domain of ‘family’ life, and the domains of ‘achievements’ and ‘personal events’, which were mainly studies-related achievements and personal events marking milestones in the transition to adulthood. Lower ACSA scores were most often related to the material reference standards: the domains of ‘money’, ‘work’ (employment), and ‘housing’. Findings from the SASAS study support the notion that the choice of domains as ACSA reference standards may be universal and therefore less culturally sensitive than those of more conventional measures. ‘Family’ events, common to all cultures, represented a dominant South African ACSA anchor choice as has been found in other studies of ACSA. Choice of domains as reference standards tended to be universally defined according to age and passage through the life course rather than particularistically, in line with the large socio-economic divides in South African society. While ACSA scores did reflect the fact that the apartheid-era hierarchy of material disadvantage still persists in South African society, choice of domains as ACSA reference standards were similar among members of all population groups. ACSA was significantly associated with more conventional measures of personal well-being, including life satisfaction, happiness, and the Personal Wellbeing Index. The closest association was with the self-anchoring Cantril ladder that uses a hypothetical, imaginary reference standard instead of ACSA’s real-life, biographical one.

Social cohesion and self-rated health among adults in South Africa: The moderating role of race

In African countries including South Africa, the nexus between social cohesion and health remains under-researched. Using data from the 2012 South African social attitudes survey with a sample of 1988 adults in South Africa aged 18 years or older, we used the collective efficacy theory by Sampson and colleagues to examine the relationship between social cohesion and self-rated health in an African sample. We also examined how this relationship differed by race. Results from the multivariate analysis after adjusting for covariates suggested that adults in the highest tertile of social cohesion were more likely to report moderate or good health compared to those in the lowest tertile. Sub-group analysis provided no evidence that the relationship was moderated by race. These findings corroborate prior evidence that social cohesion is important for improving the health of adults.