South Africa faces other serious problems, however. It has one of the fastest-growing AIDS infection rates in the world. The quality of schooling is extremely uneven. More than three-quarters of South Africa s people are black, but they share less than a third of the country s total income. The white minority retains most economic power.
Corruption is a serious and growing problem.
Unemployment stands at about 40 percent among blacks and 4 percent among whites, coupled with the loss of an estimated 500,000 private sector jobs since 1994. Half of the population of 41 million lives below the poverty line.