Hon member, let me thank you very much for your question, and I'm glad that the spotlight is on rising inequality, because societies that are characterised by high levels of inequality are not only preventing opportunities for many people, but in the long run, they can't grow as fast as societies with more equitable opportunities. Today, inequality is a global challenge.
I have come from Brazil from a meeting at Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, BRICS, summit, and in each of the country's BRICS countries they are discussing the challenges of inequality. Inequality has got two dimensions to it. The first dimension is inequality between countries growing. So, the wealthiest countries are wealthier today than they were, compared to the poorest countries. Secondly, inequality is growing within countries. This is not a South African phenomenon only; it's taking place in the United States also.
If you look at the debates in the pre-primary for the presidential elections, you will see that a number of candidates have made an issue of inequality the defining issue of the campaign. It's a challenge in the European Union. We've heard of many measures that Europe is attempting now, but what makes it so important in South
Africa, is that our levels of inequality are at the absolute top end of what you will find on the global scale. So, it's not just that it is rising, but it is extremely high. So it needs a set of interventions, not just one.
Some of the interventions that I can point to that are required, some of which we are doing now to greater extent is firstly, a job strategy. As long as you are unemployed, your earnings are limited to what you can get from family members or what you can get from a social grant or unemployment insurance grant. This means that objectively, you are not going to be able to narrow the inequality gap. So, employment is a big part of what we need to do.
The second part is skills development. As long as many South Africans, and in our case, the South Africans in rural areas and urban townships, don't get the best education that is possible, the gap between them and their peers who get great education will grow. The world is now a world in which there is higher premium for skills. You get more of return to your skills than you use to get in the old days. So, our young people must get better education.
That means that, we've got to fix basic education, and we've got to be able to ensure that the new free fee policy enables many young
people to complete university and college education. The third one is that, we need to improve the interface between education and work. If we do that, if we look at societies like Germany, Japan and countries like that, artisanal training is not only something that people aspire to, but it pays well also. It helps to decrease the gap.
Minimum wage policies where the state intervenes and ensures that nobody earns below a certain level, has often been criticised, but it has one very positive benefit which is, it does reduce levels of inequality in a society. These are just a few examples. Noting the time, I won't be able to deal with it. Perhaps at a future session we can be able to spell out in a bit more details the other measures to deal with rising income inequality in a society. Thank you.