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S. African Population Grows By 4 Million Between 1996, 2001

Posted on: Wednesday, 25 May 2005, 09:00 CDT

S. African population grows by 4 million between 1996, 2001

JOHANNESBURG, May 24 (Xinhua) -- South Africa's population grew by more than four million between 1996 and 2001, Statistics South Africa revealed in its book launched in Cape Town on Tuesday.

Entitled "Achieving a better life for all," the 202-page book provides a variety of statistics.

Primarily it showed how the country's population had grown from 40,583,573 in 1996 to 44,819,778 in 2001.

KwaZulu-Natal (9,426,017) was then still the most populous province closely followed by Gauteng (8,837,178 million).

IsiZulu was the most widely spoken language at home and in fact increased between 1996 and 2001 by 1.9 percent.

The next most widely spoken language was IsiXhosa, which dropped 0.3 percent. Afrikaans, the third most widely spoken language dropped 1.1 percent.

In migration terms, Gauteng's population expanded the most in the five years with 418,258 new residents. The Western Cape grew by 181,844 residents.

The Eastern Cape suffered the greatest exodus with 253,373 people leaving the province, while Limpopo lost 162,956 inhabitants.

Higher education remains a rarity, with only 8.4 percent of the population (2,151,336) moving on to tertiary education. The 2001 figure was however, improved by 1.8 percent over the 1996 number.

On the income scale, the majority (22.2 percent) of the employed earned between 801 rand and 1600 rand a month. A further 19 percent earned between 1601 rand and 3200 rand. Only 4.7 percent of the economically active population earned more than 12, 801 rand a month.

Statistician General Pali Lehohla said one of the most interesting developments was the development of households.

"On the census night in 2001, there were an estimated 11.2 million households in South Africa, an increase of 2.1 million, when compared to the estimation of 9.1 million households on the same night five years ago, at the time of the 1996 census," he said.

He said it was interesting to note that household development grew by four percent when the population only grew at two percent.

The report indicated that between 1996 and 2001, the number of black-headed households in formal dwellings jumped from 45.3 percent to 55.5 percent, while colored-headed households in formal housing increased from 82.9 percent to 85.7 percent.

The report stated that the overall proportion of households in formal dwellings had increased to 63.8 percent in 2001, with a corresponding decrease in the number of households living in traditional dwellings.

"There was also a decrease in the proportion of households living in backyard rooms or shared property," the report said but those households living in shacks remained "stubbornly constant" at 16.4 percent.

Source: Xinhua News Agency - CEIS

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