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South Africa has a small middle class. On the most reliable measures it comes to about 15% of the population, or roughly one in seven people.

To be considered middle class in South Africa means to be part of the group with enough disposable income to afford the things a middle-class life takes for granted: a medical aid, a home loan, and earnings high enough to pay income tax.

Most South Africans cannot afford these things. The term itself misleads, because the middle class is not the statistical middle. The median worker, who earns more than half of all workers and less than the other half, takes home about R6 000 a month, according to Statistics South Africa. Income tax only begins at around R8 000, so even the worker at the very middle of the earnings scale is too poor to be taxed, let alone to afford a middle-class life — and that is before counting the many adults with no job at all.

The Common Sense calculated how many South Africans have a medical aid, how many pay income tax, and how many hold a home loan. Each is a separate measure of the size of the same group: the share of the population that can afford a middle-class life. It can be safely assumed that there is much overlap between the people that occupy each of these groups.

About 9.2 million South Africans belonged to a medical scheme in 2024, or close to 15% of the population. Everyone else relies on the public system. Membership is a demanding test of income because it is expensive and it recurs every month.

Around 7.5 million people earn enough money to pay personal income tax, or about 12% of the population.

Meanwhile there are about 1.7 million open bonds in South Africa. A mortgage is held by a household rather than a single person, though, and at roughly three people to a bonded home that comes to about five million South Africans, or 8% of the population. In addition, there are likely a sizeable number of people who are middle class on the above two definitions, but do not have a bond, either because they prefer to rent or have paid off their home.

The middle class tends to be difficult to define, but easy to recognise. The three above metrics, when read together, give a good idea of the size of South Africa’s middle class, which remains relatively small in number.