Pretoria - Specific population estimates for all metros and district municipalities would only be known in October, Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) disclosed on Thursday, as it released the country’s national and provincial figures.
Chief director of demographic analysis at Stats SA, Diego Iturralde, was speaking to the Pretoria News following the release of the mid-year estimates, which showed South Africa’s population was just over 54.9 million as of this month.
Iturralde said any local figures mentioned now would be based on last year’s estimates and thus misleading. The focus was thus on provincial and national figures this time around, he said.
The mid-year estimates showed that the population of the Republic increased by 1.65 percent between 2014 and 2015.
The black African population remained in the majority at 44.23 million, or 80 percent of the total population, with whites estimated at 4.53 million, coloureds 4.83 million and Indians/Asians at 1.365 million.
Gauteng remained the most populous province, with almost 13.2 million inhabitants, followed by KwaZulu-Natal with about most 10.9 million.
The two provinces accounted for about 44 percent of the country’s population. The Northern Cape was the least populated province, with just under 1.2 million people.
There had been a decline in the birth rate from 25 per 1 000 people in 2002 to 23 this year. This was attributed to increasing fertility control and subsequently the choice of the ideal number of children to have by women or couples.
In terms of the estimates, about 51 percent - 28.7 million - of the South African population were women.
At least 30.2 percent is younger that 15 years and 4.43 million people 60 years and older.
Of the young people, 3.80 million were living in KwaZulu-Natal and 3.28 million in Gauteng.
The proportion of elderly persons aged 60 years and older was also increasing with time.
Migration was found to be an important demographic process in shaping the age of structure and distribution of the provincial population.
In this regard, it had been estimated that for the period 2011 to 2016, about 243 118 people would migrate from the Eastern Cape and 303 151 from Limpopo.
The Eastern Cape, Free State and Limpopo experienced the largest outflows of population.
During the same period, Gauteng is expected to experience an inflow of about 1 169 837 people and the Western Cape 350 569.
The total number of people living with HIV was estimated at 6.19 million this year, an increase from just over 4 million in 2002. Approximately one-fifth of women in their reproductive ages are HIV positive.
Population
Population estimates by province
13.2m - Gauteng
10.9m - KwaZulu-Natal
6.9m - Eastern Cape
6.2m - Western Cape
5.7m - Limpopo
4.3m - Mpumalanga
3.7m - North West
2.8m - Free State
1.2m - Northern Cape
Pretoria News