published in: Journal of Development Studies, 2005, 41 (5), 865-897
In this paper we analyse household income mobility dynamics among Africans in South
Africa’s most populous province, Kwazulu-Natal, between 1993 and 1998. Compared to
industrialized and most developing countries, mobility has been quite high, as might have
been expected after the transition in South Africa. This finding is robust when measurement
error is controlled for. When disaggregating the sources of mobility, we find that demographic
changes and employment changes account for a most of the mobility observed which is
related to rapidly shifting household boundaries and a very volatile labour market in an
environment of high unemployment. Using a multivariate analysis, we see that transitory
incomes play a large role. We also find four types of poverty traps, associated with large
initial household size, poor initial education, poor initial asset endowment and poor initial
employment access that dominate the otherwise observed regression towards to the mean.
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