Poverty and Traditional Religious Belief in Limpopo and South Africa

Abstract

Although traditional beliefs are important to many South Africans, the area is understudied. We compare our poverty measure to those developed and used by Statistics South Africa and the World Bank, to determine that the traditionally religious are poorer than average, both in South Africa as a whole, and in Limpopo Province (where we undertook additional fieldwork). While traditional religious beliefs can be held by individuals who at the same time also hold more main-line religious affiliation, no structured survey instruments to date have explored the poverty status of those holding dual beliefs--an important area for future research.