Although the economic powerhouse of Gauteng has only 1,4% of South Africa’s land area of 1,219-million square kilometres, it has 24% of the population aged between 25 and 59 years, Statistics South Africa said on Tuesday.
This is a larger share than any other of South Africa’s nine provinces and helps to explain why roughly a third of South Africa’s gross domestic product is created in this tiny province.
The provincial estimates show that KwaZulu-Natal has the largest share of the population (20,7%) in 7,6% of the surface area, followed by Gauteng (19%) and the Eastern Cape (15,2%), which has 13,9% of the surface area. Nearly 10% of the population lives in the Western Cape, which has 10,6% of the surface area.
The Northern Cape, which has the largest surface area share at 29,7%, has the smallest population, with 1,9% of the total population.
Mpumalanga has the second-smallest share of the South African population, with 7% of the total population residing in this province. Its surface area share is 6,5%.
Migration streams studied
The migration-related questions asked in the 2001 census enabled researchers to determine migration streams between the different provinces.
The migration questions differ from those used in the 1996 census and the calculations to determine the migration streams were more complicated.
The way the questions were phrased made it possible to determine if a person was a migrant in the five years before the census.
Gauteng, the Western Cape and North West had a positive net migration rate. There seems to be a high migration movement between Gauteng and North West.
The provinces with the highest outflow of people were the Eastern Cape and Limpopo. The data also suggest slightly higher migration figures for men than women.
The working-age data suggest that Gauteng may overtake KwaZulu-Natal as South Africa’s most populous province in the coming decade.
Gauteng’s attraction peaks in the 30 years to 34 years age group, where it attracts 25,5% of South Africa’s total population for that age group.
Life expectancy, fertility down
Statistics SA also announced that the life expectancy at birth in South Africa is forecast to be only 50,7 years next year compared with 63,3 years in 1990.
The main reason for the drop in life expectancy is Aids as the HIV prevalence rate in 2004 was estimated to be 15,2% compared with 14,79% in 2003, 13,05% in 2000 and only 3,82% in 1994.
Also, the total fertility rate in South Africa has fallen from 5,75 live births per female in 1970 to only 2,77 in 2004.
Socio-economic causes are the major reason for the fall in fertility with the rural urban migration probably the single largest cause, but an increase in per capita income has probably also contributed to the decline, Statistics SA said. — I-Net Bridge