A new survey was carried out in South Africa to find out the earning standards and their comparisons across the different communities in South Africa. It was seen that there are huge discrepancies in the earning of the black South Africans. They are far behind that of their white counterparts. They need to expend more for availing different kinds of facilities also. The survey was carried out by Finscope. Among the different communities that are present in the country, the blacks are paid the least. The differentiation based on skin color still exists as per the survey. The earning of the blacks is R4 723 per month and the whites earn R17 123 a month.
Blacks need to pay the most for education
Education is an area which ought to have been the same for all communities. It is not the same in this field also. The blacks need to shell out a higher amount of money for getting a particular standard of education. At an average, the black South African have to spend 7% of their expenses on education. On the other hand, the other races are spending around 4.3% of their expenses on education. The Government has announced in the hike of the Higher Education fees by 8%, making it further difficult for the blacks to pursue higher education in the days to come.
Other regular expenditures are also high
There are clear signs of the differences in most of the fields. As the blacks have to spend more, they are obviously prone to less saving. Their futures are less secure than the whites. Around 9% of the income has to be spent by the South African nationals on call charges, data expenses, telephone and internet connections, etc. It often becomes a challenge for people with average or below average income to run their household expenses.
The way ahead
The stark differences in the pay of the black South Africans and the whites in this country keep the blacks as the second class citizens of the country. Even when we are speaking of modernity in the 21st century, the mindsets of the people are yet to change. The Government should come up with laws to bring parity in the scales of pay. Discrepancies can exist which may be logical like Seniority, the tenure of service; Qualifications and competencies of the employee; performance evaluation of the worker in a transparent manner and temporary or permanent nature of the job.
