Where South Africans stood on race-based AA in 1996 and 2000

It has been the stated policy of the African National Congress government since 1997 that black Africans should receive racial preference in appointments and promotions, until all public and private sector institutions – at all levels – reflect the racial proportion of the population as a whole. The following survey – published in the Helen Suzman Foundation Journal, Focus, 3^third Quarterly 2000 – explains where ordinary South Africans stood on the issue of race-based affirmative action in the early years of ANC rule. – Editor.

The strange unpopularity of affirmative action: RW Johnson analyzes the latest survey data on employment equity.

The first indication that, despite the government's enthusiasm for affirmative action, the policy might not be particularly popular among voters, came in a post-election survey conducted in September/October 1994. We found that 61 percent of all voters (including 52 percent of Africans) wanted to see appointments based solely on merit “even if some people do not progress” as a result.

However, the difficulty in examining opinions about affirmative action is that the term often means different things to different people. It was only in our October 1996 survey, at the mid-point of the first democratic Parliament, that we were able to test the approach in detail, asking respondents to envisage different situations in the labor market.

The first, and most extreme, option we gave people was “Only blacks should be employed in jobs for a very long time.” The second option was that “only blacks should be employed until those employed are demographically representative of the entire population”. It should be noted that this option broadly matches the objectives of the government's employment equity legislation. Given that far more blacks are currently unemployed than other groups, this would also include a very strong measure of racial preference.

The third option was that in general “appointments should be made on the basis of merit, but if two candidates are equal, preference should be given to the black candidate”. This is a fairly rough definition of affirmative action, because in many cases, institutions feel it is appropriate to hire blacks who are slightly less than uniformly good and also because some positions (for example, secretaries, receptionists, etc.) are already more or less reserved for certain racial groups because employers for whom it is impossible to find black professionals want to guarantee a multi-racial workforce at least at the lower levels. Obviously our third option fell somewhat short of this new status quo.

The fourth option was that “appointments should be made purely on merit but there should be special training to help previously disadvantaged groups”. Ultimately the option was that “all appointments should be based on merit alone without any special training”. Obviously only very determined opponents of affirmative action would choose the last option.

When we first posed these detailed options in our October 1996 survey we were surprised to find that less than a quarter of respondents were in favor of stronger first and second measures, while a clear majority – 54 percent – ​​were in favor of the final option – appointment on merit alone.

Four years later, the country now has a comprehensive affirmative action law in the Employment Equity Act, and the passage of this law was accompanied by sustained government publicity. Many government departments, including Foreign Affairs and Treasury, are currently undergoing extensive change. We wondered whether this experience might have changed people's opinions? The answer is yes, opinion has changed, but it has not gone in the direction that was expected (Table 1).

The number in favor of stronger versions of affirmative action actually dropped slightly, to 22 percent. The number of those taking a centrist view has declined from 22 per cent to 19 per cent and the proportion of those who are completely against affirmative action and want appointments to be based only on merit has increased slightly from 54 per cent to 56 per cent. This is a remarkable result considering the efforts the government has made to influence public opinion in the opposite direction.

Table 1: Attitudes towards affirmative action: all castes

In 1996 white opinion, and especially white Afrikaner opinion, was widely unfavorable towards affirmative action. Table 2 shows that although opinion among whites remains overwhelmingly negative, it has moderated considerably, with as few as 11 percent of English-speaking whites favoring fairly strong measures of affirmative action and only 38 percent – ​​only half the proportion seen in 1996 – now opposing any form of affirmative action in principle.

Table 2: Attitudes toward affirmative action: Whites by language

Opposition from Afrikaans-speaking whites has also declined, although they remain hostile. There is no doubt that this dramatic softening of white opinion in favor of affirmative action represents a significant victory for the government's approach to this matter. In practice white people have learned to live with affirmative action to some extent and now, however reluctantly, they accept it as normal in the workplace. As Table 3 shows, a similar development occurred among Asians, although Asians remained hostile overall.

Table 3: Attitudes towards affirmative action: Asian

There was little change among voters of color (Table 4). However, the proportion of those who overwhelmingly support affirmative-action measures has halved from 14 percent to 7 percent, while the proportion of those who oppose in principle anything other than merit-based hiring has remained stable at just over two-thirds. This is surprising in view of the fact that colored opinion has become more favorable towards the ANC over this period.

Table 4: Attitudes towards affirmative action: color

However, the most important finding relates to changes in African opinion (Table 5). The proportion of African respondents favoring highly affirmative action policies has declined slightly from 30 percent to 28 percent, while those who believe race should be given some role in hiring, even if marginal, has declined from 27 percent to 19 percent. On the other hand, the proportion opposing affirmative action in any form has increased from 41 percent to 51 percent.

Table 5: Attitudes towards affirmative action: African

Thus the paradox is that opinion toward affirmative action has remained roughly stable overall, but this figure for all races hides movements in favor of such policies among whites and Asians who stand to lose from the policy, but a strong movement against such policies among Africans who are its potential beneficiaries.

Why has this growth of black opinion occurred? In 1996 the pattern was extremely clear – poor Africans were likely to oppose affirmative action. Thus, more than half (53 percent) of those reporting no income preferred the fourth and fifth options, while the figure dropped to 35–36 percent in the highest income categories. Similarly, black voters in the top income groups were more than twice as likely as those in the bottom groups to support the most extreme forms of affirmative action.

This was not difficult to understand: Affirmative action could ultimately only benefit a minority, and that minority was itself a privileged group – those Africans who had sufficient skills and education to compete for jobs previously held by whites, Asians, or people of color. For example, in practice an African domestic worker, farm laborer or miner has nothing to gain from affirmative action. Moreover, such people are hurt by affirmative action: the value of services is likely to decline if it means that less capable people replace more capable people in national or local government jobs.

Furthermore, one should not underestimate the work ethic and its corresponding merit policy among Africans, who for decades strongly believed that job reservation on racial grounds was wrong and that only merit should be rewarded. The sight of already privileged Africans gaining “unfair” advantages in the labor market, while the poor majority remained stuck at the bottom, was clearly not one that working class and unemployed black people found at all attractive in 1996.

However by 2000 the pattern had changed. While those with no income at all remain the most hostile to affirmative action, they now comprise a larger than average proportion of the black professional group and African high-income groups. It is the middle-income group that now holds the strongest views in favor of affirmative action. One explanation is that the most educated black professionals feel that they do not need to benefit from affirmative action and do not want to believe that they owe their success in any way to racial preference rather than merit. Thus paradoxically those who have most to gain from affirmative action, the most educated professional blacks, are now decidedly hesitant about the policy.

Perhaps most striking is the fact that 52 percent of African ANC supporters are absolutely against affirmative action (preferring the last two options we presented), and another 19 percent are in favor of the relatively limited notion of affirmative action in our third option. Only 27 percent support the strongest form represented by the first two options. The corresponding figures in 1996 were 41 percent in favor of the last two options, 29 percent in favor of the third option, and 29 percent in favor of the first two options. ANC opinion has thus turned against affirmative action, making IFP voters now the group least opposed to the policy, although their support has also declined since 1996.

It's hard to believe that this policy has much of a future. Both the Employment Equity Act and the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Discrimination Act are probably impossible to implement even before the onset of AIDS, which would remove large numbers of skilled Africans from the workforce over the next five to ten years. Now, with the AIDS epidemic upon us and the policy losing significant support in its core area anyway, it is surely doomed.

This article was first published focus 19Magazine of the Helen Suzman Foundation, third quarter 2000

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