Johannesburg - There are 51 770 560 of us, and we are watching TV in more homes, surfing the internet on our cellphones, speaking mostly isiZulu and getting a little older.
But many more children are being orphaned.
This is the result of Census 2011, released in Pretoria on Tuesday. The census was carried out in October last year.
The population is about 2 percent more than Stats SA’s most recent population estimate, the mid-year estimate last year, and about 7 million more than the last census in 2001.
Even the country got a little bigger – expanding from 1 219 602 square kilometres to 1 220 813 sq km.
This wasn’t due to the quiet annexure of any foreign land, but Stats SA explained that it was “the shift of the national boundary over the Indian Ocean” in northern KwaZulu-Natal to cater for iSmangaliso Wetland Park.
Slightly more half of today’s population are women and about eight out of every 10 people are black African.
isiZulu is the most widely spoken language – the home language of just over one in five people – followed by isiXhosa, then Afrikaans, then English. About 0.5 percent of people use sign language.
The median age is about 25 years old, a bit older than the 22 years of 1996. The median is the point in the middle – half the population is thus above 25 years old and half is below.
We are growing a little older, and regarded as an intermediate aged country.
Deaths seemed under-reported with only 4 percent of households reporting at least one death in the past year, said Stats SA, ascribing this to “respondent fatigue” as it was the last question on the census questionnaire.
But there are many more orphans.
A massive 3 374 971 children under the age of 18 have lost one or both parents, more than double the rate a decade ago. That’s one in every five children.
Education levels have improved, with the number of people aged 20 and older with no primary school education halving over the decade – from 18 percent in 2001 to about 9 percent.
The number of those aged 20 and older who finished school but got no further jumped from 20 percent in 2001 to 28 percent, and those who achieved a higher education has jumped from 7 percent to 12 percent. That means overall, those who finished school increased from about 23 percent a decade ago to 41 percent.
We are better off, with more money and better living conditions.
Household income doubled to average about R103 000 a year.
Stats SA said household income increased by 113 percent, which was more than the 78 percent increase needed to keep pace with inflation. But women still lag behind men, with female-headed households earning just half the average annual income of men, with R67 330 compared to R128 329.
Although less than half of households have piped water inside their homes (46 percent), it’s a lot better than a decade ago when only 32 percent had this.
Limpopo is the worst off, with less than two in 10 homes having piped water inside the house. About one in 10 homes across the country still has no access to piped water – not in their homes, in their yards or from a communal pipe.
About 60 percent of homes have a flush toilet connected to the sewerage system; about five percent have no toilets at all.
More homes have access to electricity than piped water in the house or toilets, with 85 percent of homes using electricity.
The electrification can be seen in the type of goods households have now.
About nine out of every 10 households has a cellphone, compared to about three in 10 a decade ago. But less households have landline phones.
TVs are now in 75 percent of households, more than the 68 percent who have radios. About 68 percent have fridges and only 21 percent have computers.
A massive 65 percent of households still have no access to the Internet. Of those surfing the net, about half are doing it on a cellphone.
The Star