Less than half of South Africa’s 15-year olds will live long enough to collect a pension, according to an actuarial report on the Aids epidemic released on Thursday.
Fifteen-year-olds now have a 56% chance of dying before turning 60. In 1996 youngsters of the same age only had a 29% chance of not making their 60th birthday.
The Demographic Impact of HIV/Aids in South Africa: National and Provincial Indicators is a report released every two years by the Actuarial Society of South Africa in conjunction with the Centre for Actuarial Research and the Medical Research Council.
”The youth of today are facing a bleak future, and much still needs to be done to protect and support this vulnerable group,” said Leigh Johnson, one of the authors of the report.
The report estimates that South Africa’s population would have reached 48-million people by the middle of 2006, of which 5,4-million people are infected with HIV — or 11% of the population.
The report highlights regional differences, with the impact of Aids greatest in KwaZulu-Natal.
Life expectancy in KwaZulu-Natal has dropped to 43 years as a result of the epidemic, while in the Western Cape life expectancy has remained relatively high at 62 years.
A third of women between the ages of 25 and 29 years are infected, while 19% of the country’s working-age (age 20 to 64) population is HIV positive.
The report said that 1,8-million people have died as a result of the epidemic. — Sapa