When it comes to inequality, South Africa is doing the worst among the BRICS. As shown in the graph below, South Africa's Gini coefficient was the highest. Comparing with India in particular; South Africa was at 0.67 in the early 1990s and the Gini coefficient has increased to almost 0.70, while India is at 0.37, leading to a difference of 0.33 in the coefficient. However, while it is true that South Africa's Gini coefficient shows a higher inequality value than India, India's increase in Gini coefficient is greater than that of South Africa. This means that inequality in India increased more in the late 2000s from the early 1990s than in South Africa, leading to people being worse off than before. Although economic growth in India has been significant, people's living standards are yet to change dramatically. Growth in India has led to an increase in the rate of inequality as discussed above. The main reason for this may be that highly productive areas, such as the tertiary sector, have failed to create an adequate level of employment. This is due to the low skill level of people in India. While India has the benefit of the demographic dividend, it will only achieve results when its young population has good health, education and the necessary skills. Until India addresses this problem, inequality will not decrease. Another factor contributing to inequality is the same as South Africa's racial discrimination. The caste system prevails in India, which leads to inequality in earned income just because a person is not at the top of the caste system. A man from a lower caste can work harder than a man from a higher caste but still earn less. So lack of skills and caste system prevent India from defeating… middle of the paper… 27.1 million in 2006. The food line is the poverty line below which people can afford a adequate diet but would have to sacrifice food to purchase non-food items and the upper line is the poverty line which marks the level at which people can purchase both adequate food and non-food items. In terms of the lower poverty line, i.e. a line that is higher than the food line but lower than the upper line: in 2011, 32.3% of the population, or around 16.3 million people, lived in poverty, a reduction compared to 42.2% or 20 million people living in poverty in 2006. The economic crisis of 2008 and 2009 was represented by the increase in the number of people living below the food threshold, from 12.6 million people in 2006 to 15.8 million in 2009. However, this effect on South Africa's poorest was attenuated in 2011, as it fell to 10.2 million people by 2011.