IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/urbstu/v53y2016i15p3336-3355.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Service delivery inequality in South African municipal areas: A new way to account for inter-jurisdictional differences

Author

Listed:
  • Kurt Sartorius

    (University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa)

  • Benn Sartorius

    (University of Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa)

Abstract

Service delivery in South African municipal areas differs widely across jurisdictional boundaries. The paper illustrates the potential of geo-spatial mapping to quantify and map service delivery inequality at local municipal level in order to differentiate policy interventions. Data from a national 2007 South African survey were analysed to assess absolute levels and relative inequality of service delivery at district and local municipality levels. Not surprisingly, the results showed a wide variation in absolute service delivery levels when comparing richer urban districts to poorer rural ones. Service delivery inequality, however, was low in the richest urban districts, as well as the poorest rural ones. Conversely, service delivery inequality was highest in the more recently industrialised districts that contained both urban and rural municipalities. The scatter distribution of service delivery inequality versus absolute levels of service delivery appears to largely support Kuznets’ (1955) inverse U theory of inequality. Further analysis and discussion of the findings, however, illustrates that urban planners in both rich and poor South African municipalities are confronted with a number of dilemmas.

Suggested Citation

  • Kurt Sartorius & Benn Sartorius, 2016. "Service delivery inequality in South African municipal areas: A new way to account for inter-jurisdictional differences," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 53(15), pages 3336-3355, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:53:y:2016:i:15:p:3336-3355
    DOI: 10.1177/0042098015613001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0042098015613001
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0042098015613001?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Aliber, Michael, 2003. "Chronic Poverty in South Africa: Incidence, Causes and Policies," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 473-490, March.
    2. Sen, Binayak, 2003. "Drivers of Escape and Descent: Changing Household Fortunes in Rural Bangladesh," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 513-534, March.
    3. Ravi Kanbur & Xiaobo Zhang, 2005. "Fifty Years of Regional Inequality in China: a Journey Through Central Planning, Reform, and Openness," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(1), pages 87-106, February.
    4. Waldo Krugell & Hannelie Otto & Jacky Van Der Merwe, 2010. "Local Municipalities And Progress With The Delivery Of Basic Services In South Africa," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 78(3), pages 307-323, September.
    5. Peltzman, Sam, 2009. "Mortality Inequality," Working Papers 225, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State.
    6. Ivan Turok, 2001. "Persistent Polarisation Post-Apartheid? Progress towards Urban Integration in Cape Town," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 38(13), pages 2349-2377, December.
    7. Elizabeth Asiedu, 2006. "Foreign Direct Investment in Africa: The Role of Natural Resources, Market Size, Government Policy, Institutions and Political Instability," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(1), pages 63-77, January.
    8. Boix, Carles & Posner, Daniel N., 1998. "Social Capital: Explaining Its Origins and Effects on Government Performance," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 28(4), pages 686-693, October.
    9. Ajwad, Mohamed Ihsan & Wodon, Quentin, 2007. "Do local Governments maximize access rates to public services across areas?: A test based on marginal benefit incidence analysis," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 242-260, May.
    10. Jonathan Mitchell, 1998. "The Maputo Development Corridor: A case study of the SDI process in Mpumalanga," Development Southern Africa, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(5), pages 757-769.
    11. Danielle Resnick, 2014. "Urban Governance and Service Delivery in African Cities: The Role of Politics and Policies," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 32(s1), pages 3-17, July.
    12. Muller, Edward N. & Seligson, Mitchell A., 1987. "Inequality and Insurgency," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 81(2), pages 425-451, June.
    13. Shlomo Yitzhaki, 1979. "Relative Deprivation and the Gini Coefficient," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 93(2), pages 321-324.
    14. Sam Peltzman, 2009. "Mortality Inequality," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 23(4), pages 175-190, Fall.
    15. Atkinson, Anthony B., 1970. "On the measurement of inequality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 244-263, September.
    16. Habib, Adam & Padayachee, Vishnu, 2000. "Economic Policy and Power Relations in South Africa's Transition to Democracy," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 245-263, February.
    17. Christian M. Rogerson, 2001. "Spatial development initiatives in Southern Africa: The Maputo Development Corridor," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 92(3), pages 324-346, August.
    18. Tony Binns & Etienne Nel, 2002. "Devolving Development: Integrated Development Planning and Developmental Local Government in Post-apartheid South Africa," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(8), pages 921-932.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Xuan Sun & Weikai Wang & Tao Sun & Ya Ping Wang, 2018. "Understanding the Living Conditions of Chinese Urban Neighborhoods through Social Infrastructure Configurations: The Case Study of Tianjin," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(9), pages 1-17, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Duncan Gillespie & Meredith Trotter & Shripad Tuljapurkar, 2014. "Divergence in Age Patterns of Mortality Change Drives International Divergence in Lifespan Inequality," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 51(3), pages 1003-1017, June.
    2. Alain Chateauneuf & Patrick Moyes, 2002. "Measuring inequality without the Pigou-Dalton condition," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-00156475, HAL.
    3. Lionel Kesztenbaum & Jean-Laurent Rosenthal, 2014. "Income versus Sanitation; Mortality Decline in Paris, 1880-1914," PSE Working Papers halshs-01018594, HAL.
    4. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:3:y:2003:i:19:p:1-16 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Peng Wang & Jay Pan & Zhehui Luo, 2015. "The Impact of Income Inequality on Individual Happiness: Evidence from China," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 121(2), pages 413-435, April.
    6. Sorger, Gerhard & Stark, Oded, 2013. "Income redistribution going awry: The reversal power of the concern for relative deprivation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 1-9.
    7. Alain Chateauneuf & Patrick Moyes, 2005. "Lorenz non-consistent welfare and inequality measurement," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 2(2), pages 61-87, January.
    8. Baiyegunhi, L.J.S. & Fraser, Gavin C.G., 2010. "Determinants of Household Poverty Dynamics in Rural Regions of the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa," 2010 AAAE Third Conference/AEASA 48th Conference, September 19-23, 2010, Cape Town, South Africa 97078, African Association of Agricultural Economists (AAAE).
    9. Angus Deaton, 2003. "Health, Inequality, and Economic Development," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(1), pages 113-158, March.
    10. Joseph T. Lariscy & Claudia Nau & Glenn Firebaugh & Robert A. Hummer, 2016. "Hispanic-White Differences in Lifespan Variability in the United States," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 53(1), pages 215-239, February.
    11. Satya Chakravarty & Diganta Mukherjee, 1999. "Measures of Deprivation and their Meaning in Terms of Social Satisfaction," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 47(1), pages 89-100, August.
    12. Duclos, Jean-Yves & Tabi, Martin, 1999. "Inégalité et redistribution du revenu, avec une application au Canada," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 75(1), pages 95-122, mars-juin.
    13. Guglielmo Maria Caporale & Juan Infante & Marta Rio & Luis A. Gil-Alana, 2023. "Persistence in UK Historical Data on Life Expectancy," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 42(4), pages 1-11, August.
    14. Milevsky, Moshe A., 2020. "Swimming with wealthy sharks: longevity, volatility and the value of risk pooling," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 19(2), pages 217-246, April.
    15. Sami Bibi & AbdelRahmen El-Lahga, 2010. "A Unified Framework to Measuring Inequality in The Arab Countries," Working Papers 567, Economic Research Forum, revised 11 Jan 2010.
    16. Mototsugu Fukushige & Yingxin Shi, 2017. "Intergovernmental fiscal relationship in China: a simple model based on the nonsymmetric Nash solution," Asia-Pacific Journal of Regional Science, Springer, vol. 1(2), pages 495-509, October.
    17. Sam Peltzman, 2014. "Socialized medicine and mortality," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 14(3), pages 179-205, September.
    18. Walter Bossert & Conchita D'Ambrosio, 2013. "Measuring Economic Insecurity," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 54(3), pages 1017-1030, August.
    19. Paolo Verme, 2011. "Two Classes of Generalized Deprivation Indexes," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 31(3), pages 2021-2029.
    20. Satya R. Chakravarty & Conchita D'Ambrosio & Pietro Muliere, 2003. "Target Shortfall Orderings and Indices," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 340, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    21. Cheong, Tsun Se & Wu, Yanrui, 2014. "The impacts of structural transformation and industrial upgrading on regional inequality in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 339-350.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:53:y:2016:i:15:p:3336-3355. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/urbanstudiesjournal .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.