For years, popular belief has been that the biggest winners in South Africa’s economy are highly qualified, with stable jobs, and the self-employed. These groups are assumed to enjoy the strongest income growth, even in tough times. But a decade of data from the Bureau of Market Research’s Personal Finance Research Division tells a different story. Between 2015 and 2025, the total personal income in South Africa increased by more than 80% in nominal terms, from R3.7 trillion to R6.8 trillion. Beneath that headline, the composition of income changed significantly. Salaries and wages, while still dominant, lost ground with their share of total income falling from 58% to 52%. Self-employment remained flat at around 12%. The big movers were investment income, which grew its share from 17% to 22%, and transfers such as pensions and grants, which also became more important.
The fastest growth came from capital and retirement-linked sources. Investment income increased by 133%, and pensions and annuities grew 131% over the period between 2015 and 2025. By contrast, salaries increased only 60% and self-employment income 78%. This means that the strongest gains accrued to a very small group of South Africans. Around 3% of adults rely on investments or pensions as their main sources of income, yet together they captured nearly a third of the total rand increase in income during the decade.
Age played a decisive role. Older adults, particularly those over 60 years of age, saw the most dramatic gains, with investment income for the 65+ group increasing by over 220%. In contrast, wage incomes for young adults were stagnant or even negative. Education remained an important differentiator, with completed secondary and tertiary qualifications associated with better income outcomes. Yet qualifications did not shield younger cohorts from weak wage growth, highlighting that in the current context, age and asset exposure have outweighed education as predictors of income growth.
The reasons lie in the broader macroeconomic context. South Africa has averaged less than 1% growth per year over the last decade, with GDP expanding by only 0.6% in 2023. Unemployment remained stubbornly high, reaching 33.2% in 2025. In such an environment, wage progression and labour absorption are limited. At the same time, financial markets outperformed the GDP growth rate. The JSE All Share Index passed the 100 000 mark in 2025, and elevated interest rates through 2024 boosted investment and annuity returns. These conditions favoured asset holders while leaving workers and jobseekers behind. South Africa’s income growth has therefore been concentrated among the older age cohorts, fragile, and insufficiently inclusive. A small minority captured disproportionate gains, but their incomes are highly dependent on volatile global markets and interest-rate cycles. Unless employment-intensive growth is accelerated and broader participation in investment and retirement saving is promoted earlier in life, with affordable, accessible products that make asset ownership possible for more people, inequality risks deepening further. The story of 2015 to 2025 is one in which assets, not jobs or degrees, drove the strongest income growth. To build a more inclusive future, the challenge now is to ensure that the benefits of growth are not limited to a small, older, asset-owning minority, but spread more widely across South Africa’s working-age population.
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Compiled by: Ms J Meiring and Prof CJ van Aardt
16 September 2025