Abstract
The objective of this paper was to examine the role of democracy on poverty and intergenerational inequality in South Africa. To achieve the central objective of the study, the authors used secondary data and published literature to unpack the nexus. This approach was employed to broaden further, the understanding of democracy, intergenerational inequality, and poverty in South Africa. Research on democracy and poverty in South Africa dwells on pre and post-apartheid South Africa, and how the political transition of 1994 was supposed to change the lives of previously disadvantaged groups socioeconomically. Nevertheless, the literature from a South African perspective does not pay particular focus on intergenerational inequality and how it has given rise to poverty in post-apartheid South Africa, and how the democratization of South Africa has failed to address this issue, hence the importance of exploring secondary sources. Although there is no a direct relationship between democracy and the two socioeconomic variables, close proxies were used to ascertain the relationship. The paper established that unemployment, lack of property ownership and a poor education system are the main contributors to poverty and intergenerational inequality in South Africa. Further, the democratic government came into power aware of this anomaly and, as a result, introduced several policies to address it. However, this paper confidently states that, the government's pro-poor policies did not adequately address these problems. As recommendations, this paper submits that, it is essential to increase the redistribution of assets, especially land, to allow land ownership to the poor, which will open many other economic opportunities like access to capital. Secondly, a policy response that addresses the type of