This project fell under a partnership between the African Centre of Excellence for Inequality Research (South African and Ghana nodes) and the London School of Economics (LSE). To complement the extensive body of work on the dynamics of vulnerability and poverty alleviation, this projects aims to ‘turn the telescope’ using a sociological lens, onto the structuring of privilege in South Africa and Ghana.
By exploring which drivers facilitate or hinder social mobility through the middle classes and into the elite in developing contexts, the project’s aim is two-fold. First, it provides a critical review of enablers of social mobility from a perspective of sustainability and equitable growth, which can in turn inform policies and climate actions, particularly those that seek to redress inequality. Second, in terms of research practice, we identify methodological implications for social mobility analyses from a perspective of the global South.
This project makes use of the South African National Income Dynamics Study dataset and the Ghanaian Socio-economics Panel (Profs Leibbrandt and Osei, ACEIR leads, are also the lead PIs on these respective national surveys).
Read our first working paper ‘The socio-economic dimensions of racial inequality in South Africa: a social space perspective’ here.
This project received funding through Prof Mike Savage from the International Inequalities Institute at LSE between November 2022 and March 2023. This was enabled by an award originally from the UKRI, Transforming Social Inequalities Through Inclusive Climate Action (TSITICA).