The disappearing middle class: How South Africa’s socio-economic divide is about to erupt

SOUTH Africas middle class is vanishing, squeezed between opulence and poverty. In Johannesburg's Sandton, where affluence defines the skyline, professionals are now allocating up to 20% of their monthly income just to get to work. Meanwhile, just 25 kilometres away in Diepsloot, informal workers, with little to no access to formal employment, live on a fraction of that income; far below the poverty line. Cape Town’s affluent Constantia offers 5-star healthcare just minutes from home, but in Khayelitsha, residents endure 4-hour waits for basic medical care in underfunded clinics.

- NOMVULA ZELDAH MABUZA

Once comprising 40% of the population in 2010, the middle class now accounts for only 35% of South Africa’s people, signalling a crisis not just of economic disparity, but of the structural inequities embedded deep within the country’s political and economic systems.

South Africa's economy is growing, but not in a way that benefits the majority of its citizens. In Johannesburg, the middle class represents 16% of GDP, yet many find themselves squeezed by mounting costs. Transport alone takes up 20% of their monthly earnings, reflecting the larger structural problem: the rising cost of living amid stagnant wages. For comparison, over the last decade, real wages have dropped by 5%, with many workers now slipping back into poverty.

De-unionisation has played a significant role in this shift, eroding the bargaining power that once protected the middle class.

Meanwhile, South Africa’s informal economy, which employs 25% of the population, faces unique challenges. Informal workers in townships like Diepsloot earn 50% less than the national poverty line, with only 15% of the population able to access formal jobs.

The dissonance between the growth in the urban elite and the systemic exclusion of large swathes of the population only deepens the socioeconomic divide. Johannesburg, for instance, has become a city divided, not only by its gleaming skyline but by the underlying inequities in access to economic opportunities.

Globally, the middle class is shrinking in 60% of developed economies, and South Africa is no exception. Its Gini coefficient (the global measure of income inequality) remains at an alarming 0.63, with the top 10% holding 65% of urban assets. This growing concentration of wealth in the hands of a few has led to increasing levels of inequality that threaten social cohesion and stability.