Are We Really Painting the Devil on the Walls? Polarization and its Drivers in Sub-Saharan Africa in the Past Two Decades

Abstract

The development path of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) over the past two decades has been characterized by sluggish poverty reduction occurring alongside robust economic growth. Applying polarization measures to comparable survey data from 24 SSA countries, we find that there has been a generalizable increase in polarization over the past two decades—and in particular, an increased concentration of households in the lower tail of the welfare distribution of SSA countries. The polarization process is further analyzed by identifying the main drivers and singling out the effect of different covariates at different points in the consumption distribution. This investigation reveals that the drivers of polarization are relatively similar across SSA: demographic, urban/rural, regional variables and access to basic infrastructure are found to be the most important drivers of polarization in many countries.