Census 2001 provides the government with a tool to plan development and allocation of resources better than ever before.
This conclusion is based on new definitions of urban and rural areas in South Africa. In the past, the official definition of an urban area was determined by whether it had a post office, school, police station and cathedral.
Now Statistics South Africa has released a ground-breaking document that challenges the simplicity of this definition. It says that urban and rural should be measured by population density and not infrastructure.
Some experts say this will greatly enhance the census and help government decide on where to spend its budget.
For example, the government will now be able identify areas that are likely to develop cholera, based on water and sanitation facilities.
It will be able to do so through a Geographic Information System (GIS), which forms part of the Stats SA report.Â
The GIS consists of a series of interactive maps of South Africa with detailed population densities. Government researchers and other stake- holders will be able use these maps to locate small areas where basic services and infrastructure are needed.
Pali Lehohla, Stats SA statician general, said the new system means that the government can feed in information of its choice and get a more nuanced picture of South Africa.
“Government can then decide where they want to spend the money,” he said.
Lehohla said that the GIS was developed to replace the “egg-yolk” definition of urban and rural areas. The direct spin-off, he said, will be to narrow the poverty gap.
Census 2001, released this week, shows that although the South African population has grown by 2% to 44,8-million, 41,6% of people are still unemployed.
It also shows that the income levels of South Africans are divided on racial lines, with white people still earning much more than black Africans.
According to the report, the biggest category of earners, 22% (1 821 446 people), is paid between R801 and R1 600 a month.
Congress of South African Trade Unions economist Neva Makgetla said she was unsure what to make of the data because it contradicted an earlier report on gross domestic product (GDP) and population growth. “There are big discrepancies, they said the GDP per capita grew by less than 1% and per household by 7%. This does not make sense to us because, with job losses, more workers are supporting more people. There may be more money going out but there are fewer people getting it.”
She criticised Stats SA for merely releasing statistics without fully analysing them.
One of the advantages of the GIS is that government will be able to feed income levels into the system and be able to analyse trends from a birds-eye vantage point.
Another advantage is that government can track population movement. Census 2001 shows that there are one million foreign nationals living in South Africa.
Of these, most are from the Southern African Development Community region. Statistics showed that South Africa attracted 687 679 people from the region, but did not give a breakdown of which immigrants were leading the race to South Africa.
Just less than a quarter (228 314) are Europeans. Ros Hirschowitz, deputy director general for quality and methodology at Stats SA, said the census excluded questions about their legal status.
Africa Institute of South Africa head Dr Eddie Maloka said the only thing surprising about the immigrant figure was that it was that low “if we compare it with a country like Côte d’Ivoire, where almost 50% of the population is not Ivorian.
“We must also remember that South Africa as an economic hub of the region and the continent will continue to attract professionals, criminals and thugs, hawkers and all sorts of skills,” said Maloka.