Innovation and Social Inequalities in Africa

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume V, Issue XII, December 2021 | ISSN 2454–6186

Innovation and Social Inequalities in Africa

Audu, Solomon¹, Gbadamosi, Jumoke^2
1,2Caleb University, Imota, Lagos, Nigeria

Abstract: Social inequality is found across the continent of Africa just as in any other continent. Social inequalities portend to have negative effects on the populace of any region. Therefore, this study is set to examine the effect of innovation on the level of social inequality on selected countries in Africa. The theories that form the bedrock for discussion in this study is the saturation theory and the system theory. The study population is made up of all forty-eight mainland countries in Africa. While purposive sampling was used to select twelve countries based on the availability of data. The Ex-post facto research design was adopted and the linear regression was used in measuring the effect of the independent variable which is information technology on the dependent variables which are human development index, the level of income distribution and the level of female gender literacy index in Africa. The result shows an adjusted R2 of 41.5% which indicates that innovation alone does not account for the level of income distribution of the selected countries in Africa. This means that the remaining 58.5% represents other factor not captured in this study that can also explain the level of income distribution of the selected countries in Africa. The result further shows a computed p-value of 0.014 at 5% level of significance. This indicates that innovation has a significant effect on income distribution of the selected countries in Africa. It is recommended that governments of countries on the African continent need to provide and promote the infrastructure on which technological innovation can be built on and made assessable by all regardless of social class.

Keywords: Gender Inequality, Human Development Index, Income Distribution, Information Technology, Innovation

I. INTRODUCTION

Inequality possesses a lot of negative effect on the immediate society and the on the world in general. For instance, Koseli (2006) posits that inequality has a link with the level of negative vices in any society. Social inequality is shown in the distribution of income (Doganoglu & Gulcu, 2001); it is also reflected in the quality life of the people (Goldstein, 2005) and in the level of education of the girl child (Thorbecke & Charumilind, 2002). More worrisome is the position that social inequalities gap seems to be widening with the passage of time (Hojma, 2002).

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