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Ethiopia Social System
Rural areas, which contain an estimated 89 percent of the
population, make up most of the country; it is the urban
centers, however, that generate most of the country's
political, administrative, cultural, and commercial
activities. The towns and cities are also home to a variety
of people forced to live on the margins of society by the
Mengistu regime--absentee landlords whose rural lands and
urban property had been confiscated by the state, as well as
erstwhile activists who had aspired to genuine democratic
reforms and had seen their hopes dashed.
Prior to the 1974 revolution, most Ethiopians conducted
their daily lives in accordance with norms peculiar to each
community or region. Ethnic groups characterized by common
features of social organization and values were, on closer
examination, actually quite diverse. As important as local
structures were, the societies they characterized were not
autonomous. Those that came closest to self-sufficiency were
the eastern nomads. In the inaccessible and inhospitable
areas inhabited by these groups, representatives of the
central government were scarce. Elsewhere, each community
was bound to a region and through it to the imperial center
by layers of social and political strata. Binding these
strata together even tighter was a complex system of land
rights.
Modifications introduced after World War II, particularly
with respect to land rights, had little effect on the
essential characteristics of the social order. The regime
that took power in 1974 attempted to replace the old rural
order with a new one based on the principle that land should
be distributed equitably. Even though most rural areas
supported the government's efforts to bring about such a
change, the ultimate shape of the social and economic order
remained uncertain as the 1990s began.
Data as of 1991
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