Inherited wealth in post-apartheid South Africa: new perspectives from probate records

This chapter uses a novel data source – probate records – to develop an original account of the scale of the racial wealth divide in South Africa and its geographic dimensions. The results provide a sobering perspective on the scale of the racial wealth divide 30 years after the end of Apartheid. We estimate that 45% of White South African adults own inheritable wealth of at least R.250,000, compared to 3% of Black, 9% of Coloured, and 23% of Asian South Africans, and these gaps have narrowed only modestly between 2009 and 2019. We compare these results to estimates from survey data and discuss the nature of the probate source biases and interpretation. We also show that Black South Africans leaving estates are primarily dwellers in former Apartheid-era townships, and to a lesser extent, Homelands, with 42% resident in townships and 17% in Homelands at death, suggesting that this Black formal wealth-owning upper-middle class are predominantly the owners of assets acquired during the Apartheid-era. This points to the limited extent to which South Africa’s Black upper and middle classes have bought into the historically White-owned asset stock. It also suggests that, much as in other parts of the world, the wealth distribution beyond the apex owes much to the structure of home ownership and geographically uneven house price appreciation.