OWETO, South Africa, Dec. 28 — For decades the fervor of the antiapartheid struggle burned in these ragged streets. People sang and danced for joy in this impoverished black township when apartheid finally ended in 1994.

But eight years after South Africa elected its first black government, a small but growing number of blacks are arguing what once seemed unimaginable — that life was better under white rule.

Twenty percent of blacks polled in a survey released this month said they approved of how South Africa was governed during the apartheid years, up from 8 percent in 1995. Political analysts warn that this suggests worrisome levels of disillusionment among the people who elected Nelson Mandela the country's first black president with such hope in 1994.

Most blacks clearly do not want to turn back the clock. In the survey, called the Afrobarometer, conducted by the Institute for Democracy in South Africa, the Center for Democracy and Development in Ghana and Michigan State University, about 60 percent favored the current political system, which gave blacks the right to vote and expanded their access to housing, water and electricity.

Today, the benefits of the post-apartheid era seem plain: There are black faces in Parliament and in businesses, integrated schools and neighborhoods and a rapidly growing black elite.

But disappointment is clearly surging among the poor, the working class and the undereducated. Western officials have praised the black government for its conservative fiscal policies, but the nation has lost thousands of jobs in recent years as the previously sheltered economy has been liberalized.

Unemployment is nearly 30 percent, up from 17 percent in 1995. It is not unusual to hear some blacks talk wistfully about the apartheid era when jobs were plenty and layoffs few.

No one is suggesting that blacks are longing for a return to racial oppression and political disfranchisement. It is just that white rule sometimes seem rosier when people consider today's levels of unemployment and crime and the increasing competition with foreign immigrants for jobs.

"Things were better before," said Kala Kgamedi, 33, who lost his job as a salesman two years ago. He was unemployed for nearly two years before he found another job, which provides little in the way of medical benefits and does not provide a company car, as his previous post did.

"In the years of apartheid, things were running smoothly," said Mr. Kgamedi, who works at a car licensing office. "We never had such retrenchments. Now, most people here are jobless. When you get a job, it's not permanent; it's part-time. Me, I would be happy to go back to the apartheid era."

Natale Koanaite, a 27-year-old driver, says the high hopes poor people had when they voted for the black government are fading. "Voting is supposed to change the lives of people who are disadvantaged," he said. "But after voting, what did people get? In Soweto not much is changing."

The governing African National Congress has acknowledged the mounting dissatisfaction. The party's membership has declined in four of the country's nine provinces over the last five years. This month, Kgalema Motlanthe, secretary general of the party, warned that it was in danger of losing young supporters.

Less than half of the people between 18 and 25 voted in the 1999 presidential election. A.N.C. officials fear that disaffected young people, who often lack jobs and vivid memories of apartheid, may be wooed by other political parties, black or white.

"If as a society and a movement we fail to conscientize and mobilize the student and young professional and intelligentsia, other forces will step into this vacuum," Mr. Motlanthe warned.

He said the party's weaknesses in communicating its positions to the public on key issues had left it vulnerable.

"This provided space for both the right and the ultra-left to attack the movement on issues ranging from the pace of delivery to the challenges of unemployment and poverty," he said.

Dissatisfied blacks are hardly seeking a white president. The Afrobarometer survey, of 2,400 people across the country, showed that less than 3 percent of black voters intended to vote for a white political party. The survey, which had a margin of sampling error of 2 percentage points, suggests that blacks do not want another white government but miss what they view as the efficiency of the old one.

"It's not nostalgia for apartheid per se, but for the way things are seen to have worked under apartheid," explained Robert Mattes, a political analyst at the University of Cape Town, who conducted the recent Afrobarometer survey.

Here in black township of Soweto, on a block of cramped houses and wilting dreams, Sabelo Sibanda, 28, has already decided not to vote. He is a law school graduate who has been searching for a job for more than a year.

"We wanted to contribute to our country," said Mr. Sibanda, who lives with his parents and wonders now whether he was foolish to dream such lofty dreams. "We fought for so long for equal rights, to be respected, to be treated as people. I wonder now, the struggle, was it worth it?

"Here I am, young and qualified, and I cannot get a job. Why should I vote when I don't benefit from this government? They say they're trying to alleviate poverty, but I don't see it."