This paper contributes to the ongoing debate on the relationship between urban agglomeration
and income inequality. The World Bank and the United Nations place Sub-Saharan Africa
among the leading urbanizing regions with sizable urban agglomeration inequality challenges.
Therefore, the main research question of this study was whether there is a significant
relationship between urban agglomeration and income inequality. This study also aimed
to determine whether the relationship is nonlinear, estimated using a dynamic panel
model, an inverted U-shaped Kuznets hypothesis, and balanced panel data from 2000
to 2020 for 22 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. The findings revealed a nonlinear
relationship between urban agglomeration and income inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The findings showed that income inequality increases with urban agglomeration in the
first stage and decreases in the later stages of urbanization. Based on the findings,
our recommendations are to enhance governance capacity in providing urban infrastructural
investment, improve industrialization capacity, and open up the peri-urban connecting
rural regions through public–private development partnerships to shorten the urbanization-driven
income inequality inverted U-shaped Kuznets’ turning point in Sub-Saharan Africa.
