informal settlements in south africa 2019 statistics

Approximately one-fifth of households lived in informal dwellings in Gauteng and Western Cape (both 18,7%) and North West (18,4%). According to. What do you think? Without that buffer, and without having had historical access to such financing, why would a culture of leveraging finance exist? According to the 2001 National Census, there were 1 176 'informal settlements' in South Africa, with the KwaZulu-Natal having the largest number at 363. In addition, what you won’t find in here, even though they constitute very important elements of the land issue, is discussion of property sizes, property values, the legacy of Apartheid spatial planning, and other related issues which play a role in defining South African home ownership patterns between races. Just looking at proportions can be misleading since the vast, vast majority of South Africans are black and even a small slice of the black South African population can eclipse an entire other population group. According to Statistics South Africa’s (Stats SA) 2019 General Household Survey (GHS), slightly more than eight-tenths (81,9%) of South African households lived in formal dwellings in 2019, followed by 12,7% in informal dwellings, and 5,1% in traditional dwellings. Rather than bite off more than I can chew though, I will restrict the land discussion to the context of home ownership in this post (I’m already skating on thin ice here, I’m sure). All Rights Reserved, National Home Builders Registration Council, Agriculture, land reform and rural development. Informal settlements to be 'made livable', Alexandra inquiry hears Gauteng to provide services to land occupiers rather than evicting them 16 May 2019 - 06:56 By GroundUp I’m always very happy to collaborate. Traditional dwellings were most common in Eastern Cape (23,0%) and KwaZulu-Natal (13,1%). In addition, many RDP houses have not yet had titles to them issued, and many have been transacted without formal transfer. The capacity to undertake informal settlement upgrading remains a challenge for government. In addition, many RDP houses have not yet had titles to them issued, and many have been transacted without formal transfer. This allows the DHS, in collaboration with provinces and municipalities, to establish and facilitate a sustainable national housing development process. 43. Along with 1.9 million people in backyard shack, 2 million on farms belonging to others, and 17 million in communal areas, this means that in that year around 30 million people, nearly 60% of all South Africans, lived on land or in dwellings held outside of the cadastral system.’. Priority 4 (spatial integration, human settlements and local government) of government’s 2019‐2024 Medium Term Strategic Framework is aimed at addressing this need. For one thing, we’re working with data that runs up to 2012 or 2014, depending on the statistics involved. Land. The statistic shows the distribution of employment in South Africa by economic sector from 2010 to 2020. This has been corrected. As the StatsSA’s 2015 mid-year population estimates show, there are roughly nine black South Africans for every one coloured or white South African, and 27 for every Indian South African. I did want to get it out though before the data became irretrievably stale, so here it is. The Department of Human Settlements (DHS) derives its core mandate and responsibilities from Section 26 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa of 1996 and Section 3 of the Housing Act of 1997, read in conjunction with approved policies and chapter 8 of the National Development Plan (NDP). Townships were usually built on the periphery of towns and cities. Against this backdrop South Africa is rapidly urbanizing. The biggest declines in the percentage of the urban population living in informal settlements during the reference period were found in Limpopo ( … South Africas COVID-19 lockdown: cigarettes and outdoor exercise could ease the tension - The Citizen, Your email address will not be published. The article further establishes a common and fertile grou… StatsSA gives us a very clear answer to this question. Do people in communal areas, around a third of the population, ‘own’ their homes? Another 5 million lived in RDP houses where no titles had yet been issued due to systemic inefficiencies. of this report. I’ve updated the White and Indian/Asian labels/numbers in several of the charts. Households that lived in formal dwellings were most common in Limpopo (95,2%) and Mpumalanga (89,6%). The 2001 and 2011 figures are not completely comparable because of boundary differences between the sub places of 2001 and 2011. Save my name, email, and site URL in my browser for next time I post a comment. I’d love to cover these dynamics in more detail though so if you have data on these areas, please do share. 2018 in review: Are we driving each other apart or are we being driven apart? About 81,9% of households in metropolitan areas lived in formal dwellings, while 16,8% lived in informal dwellings. There is little awareness of UISP and use of the … 16% of all households lived in an informal dwelling and 17% shared one room, with figures highest in KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo and … I personally found this data very illuminating. A reader points towards this report by the Children’s Institute at UCT on child access to housing. house on a separate stand, flat or apartment, townhouse, room in backyard, rooms or flatlet elsewhere. Households that lived in rented dwellings were most common in Gauteng (35,3%) and Western Cape (25,9%) and least common in Eastern Cape (11,8%) and Limpopo (12,5%). Before we take a look at the answer though, this is how StatsSA defines formal and informal dwellings (source): “[A] Formal dwelling refers to a structure built according to approved plans, i.e. The survey allows us to answer questions such as what proportion of South Africans live in informal settlements, how many people live in traditional dwellings and how many people live in a formally defined “house”? The publication of South Africa’s latest unemployment figures was accompanied by the usual wringing of hands and promises of job creation. Housing projects not reducing informal settlements ... By James Mahlokwane May 28, 2019. Copyright 2021 Government of South Africa. With that in mind, I worked with Daniela Lépiz from OpenUp to collate data on one aspect of this topic: home ownership. Your email address will not be published. This article aims to explore the causes of informal settlements in Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality (EMM). In Kiambiu, an informal settlement in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, Halima Salim told CNS the government-recommended sanitizers are yet to reach the slum’s 50,000 residents. Stats SA’s 2019 GHS shows that the percentage of households that received some form of government housing subsidy increased from 5,6% in 2002 to 18,7% in 2019. Posted on December 12, 2019 … To accelerate the delivery of well‐located, affordable rental and social housing, the department plans to provide capital subsidies to accredited social housing institutions through the Social Housing Regulatory Authority to lower the cost of construction for developers and the cost of occupation for tenants. It is just 11am at an informal settlement called Anglers - named after the railway station closer to it in Lenasia, southern Johannesburg. Between 2014 - 2019, there is a target to upgrade 750 000 households in informal settlements to Phase 2 services (Communal). Yes, and no – most do not have title deeds to those homes, an derive their security of tenure from social relations and recognised membership of a group. A notably higher percentage of female-headed households (23,1%) than male-headed household (15,5%) received subsidies. In South Africa, the terms township and location usually refer to the often underdeveloped racially segregated urban areas that, from the late 19th century until the end of apartheid, were reserved for non-whites, namely Indians, Africans and Coloureds. Yes, and no – most do not have title deeds to those homes, and derive their security of tenure from social relations and recognised membership of a group. It’s an under-appreciated, yet-to-be-captured, national treasure that works tirelessly to measure and quantify all aspects of our country in order to inform (supposedly) good policy decisions. Thanks for spotting this. According to the Department of Human Settlements (as referenced by Africa Check here and here), 2.9 million houses were built and delivered between 1994 and 2015, which would represent about 20% of the homes owned by black South Africans (assuming that all RDP houses went to black South Africans) shown in this chart : Again, we can see from the above chart that the vast majority of home owners in South Africa are black. the)number)ofhouseholds)by)dwelling)type.Data)from)Statistics)South)Africa)(StatsSA)’s) General)Household)Survey)indicate)that)79.3%)of)households)in)South)Africa)live)in)formal dwellings,)while13.9%)of)householdslive)in)informal)dwellingsand)5.9%)of)householdslive) Who owns their homes in South Africa? ‘1.5 million people lived in RDP houses with inaccurate or outdated titles, in most cases due to transfers outside of the formal system. ... as at 2018 according to Statistics South Africa's General Household Survey ... e.g. What a fantastic clarification of how the system works. As we can see from the dark blue bars in the below chart, most South Africans of all races live in a free-standing brick or concrete house. Between 1994 and 2005, the government had built 1.8 million brand new basic government houses as a part of the program. This site contains the investigations and creative pursuits of an itinerant scholar; mostly trying to make sense of this crazy place called South Africa through data science and culture. In 2019, over 66 percent of South Africa's total population lived in urban areas and cities. The September 2019 Quarterly Employment Statistics (QES) survey showed that an estimated 10 142 000 people were employed in the formal non-agricultural sector of the South African economy, which is down by 28 000 from 10 170 000 in the read more ». Some densely populated areas have been classified as "traditional" (and not as "urban") by Statistics South Africa and therefore are not considered here. Ben’s research clarifies this: “[The article] misses a key dimension: the meaning of ‘ownership’. Urbanization defines the share of urban population from the total population of a country. One of the DHS areas of responsibility in the delivery of human settlements relates to the bottom-most end of the market, where it provides housing subsidies to the poor. The term township also has a distinct legal meaning in South Africa's system of land title, … Required fields are marked *. South Africas COVID-19 lockdown: cigarettes and outdoor exercise could ease the tension - The Citizen, 2020 in review: the year crude populism and polarisation took hold. SONA 2020: Ramaphosa gets his point across despite a Pyrrhic victory for the EFF, The curious case of the short-lived ‘Ayobots’. The department’s housing entities include the: A housing subsidy is a grant by government to qualifying beneficiaries for housing purposes. This was largely because available data from Statistics South Africa and other Government agencies could not accurately capture the intricacies and uniqueness of these settlements, as well as the lack of a universal definition as highlighted in the table below. This is where the bulk of the housing backlog exists, affecting mainly those who earn below R3 500 a month. Regenerative development provides an ecological response and emphasises human development concerns. Despite the construction of low cost housing by the government the demand of housing is far more than the supply. The NDP expresses the need for a systematic response to South Africa’s entrenched spatial patterns that exacerbate social inequality and economic inefficiency. As mentioned up front though, what we don’t know from this data is the size, value and location of these homes. Do these findings surprise you or reinforce what you already believe? StatsSA’s 2015 mid-year population estimates, Cyril, please let us smoke, drink; it’s better for SA health than abstinence – academics - Latest News about EB5 Visa, South Africa’s COVID-19 lockdown: cigarettes and outdoor exercise could ease the tension – Limpopo Business Online, This Travel Elephant? Pingback: Cyril, please let us smoke, drink; it’s better for SA health than abstinence – academics - Latest News about EB5 Visa, Pingback: South Africa’s COVID-19 lockdown: cigarettes and outdoor exercise could ease the tension – Limpopo Business Online, Pingback: This Travel Elephant? Home ownership peaked for black South Africans in 2008 before declining precipitously, perhaps indicating that many black South Africans who qualified for formal financing before the 2008 crash hit were subsequently disqualified after the crash. This is not to say that is it necessarily the same people (although I am sure this is the case for many) – there might still be some upward mobility at an individual level. The DHS is working to enhance affordable housing finance programmes to assist this growing segment by providing lump‐sum deposits to qualifying beneficiaries to lower their monthly mortgage repayments. This is not the full picture when it comes to the land debate. Well, a few things stand out for me: If we then look at the absolute numbers of South Africans that live in a fully paid-off home, we can see that most outright home owners are black South Africans: Worryingly though, the below chart shows that the proportion of black homeowners has been decreasing in recent years while the other race groups represent very small, but more stable, proportions of home ownership: Looking at the trend in the above figures (which admittedly only get us up to 2012 in our data), we can see that: When we look at these trends in terms of absolute numbers, we see that the vast majority of homes are owned by black South Africans – orders of magnitude more than those owned by all the other race groups combined. For further reading, see our report: South Africa – Informal Settlements Status. Since the program was introduced in 1994, around four million houses have been built and allocated to needy families and individua… Quantifying the spread of EFF & RET disinformation, Social media disinformation: parallels between the US and South African experiences, Black South Africans are more likely to own their property than any other race group while white South Africans are least likely to outright own theirs, White South Africans are most likely to still owe the bank for their houses while very few black South Africans appear to have a bond; perhaps pointing to alternative arrangements that does not rely on financing their homes, likely due to both cultural reasons and a historical lack of access to formal financing, Indians and Asians are the most likely to rent their property, Black South Africans are the most likely to own their home but this proportion had been steadily decreasing going into the current decade. On the flip side of the coin, the vast majority of formal home owners are also black South Africans. The Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP), introduced by the ANC government in 1994, set up a government-funded housing programto house low-income residents. In practice this is more complicated than first appears. The article strongly challenges the view that the cause of informal settlements in EMM and other parts of South Africa is predominantly the apartheid government and agrees with literature which provides evidence that to a larger extent, the present government, not the apartheid government, is one of the dominant causes of informal settlements. For that kind of evaluation, this PLAAS ‘Fact Check’ infographic is the most succinct summary of the overall land issue that I’m aware of. It is common knowledge that in fact these demographics are in fact swapped with a White population of around 4 million and and an Indian population of around one million. To give effect to these guiding policies, the DHS will focus on four priority areas over the medium term: facilitating the development of integrated human settlements, upgrading informal settlements, providing affordable rental housing, and providing affordable housing finance. Depends what you mean by “own”. Since 1994, the Human Settlements Department has delivered 200,000 free houses to the poor without making a demonstrable improvement in the overall number of informal dwellers lacking basic services. Beware; there are gaps in this article. The defining characteristic of almost all major cities around the developing world is their large informal settlements … A major discrepancy is the stats on ownership within ethnic groups. Ms T Daniel, the Information Officer, and Mr Walied Jacobs, a senior statistician, presented from Statistics South Africa. According to the World bank, as much as half of South Africa’s urban population lives in townships and informal settlements, accounting for 38% of … ‘Untitled: Securing land tenure in urban and rural South Africa’ (ed. For example, many of these could be government-provided homes. As mentioned up front though, this does not take into account the size, value or location of those homes, which would make for some fascinating future research. As we can see from the dark blue bars in the below chart, most South Africans of all races live in a free-standing brick or concrete house. Integrated housing developments are funded mainly through the urban settlements developmentgrant and the human settlements development grant, both in the Integrated Human Settlements Planning and Development programme. Thanks to those readers who pointed it out.]. This error is repeated in a number of other graphs. South Africa is not unique in this respect. have a bond or some kind of financing behind their home. Urban informal settlements are the fastest-growing household sector in South African cities. Here’s the breakdown of children living in various types of dwelling by province: See the 2016 General Household Survey results here in the “housing” section. What proportion of South Africans live in an informal dwelling? The growth of informal settlements, slums and poor residential neighbourhoods is a global phenomenon accompanying the growth of urban populations. INORMAL SETTLEMENTS IN SOTH ARICA - AGST 2013 RESEARCH REPORT There is no data available in the census on housing waiting lists and subsidy housing. Hornby, Kingwill, Royston and Cousins, UKZN Press 2017), we estimate is that in 2011 around 60% of South Africans held land or dwellings outside the formal system: ‘1.5 million people lived in RDP houses with inaccurate or outdated titles, in most cases due to transfers outside of the formal system. Contrasted with informal dwelling and traditional dwelling… [An] Informal dwelling is a makeshift structure not erected according to approved architectural plans, for example shacks or shanties in informal settlements or in backyards”. Income inequality results in other forms of exclusion, the most glaring being access to adequate housing which explains the overrepresentation of Africans and Coloureds in informal settlements. The below chart breaks down the proportion of each race that outright owns their homes, partially owns their homes (i.e. The department is expected to deliver mixed‐use, mixed‐income and integrated settlements, through housing and infrastructure subsidies delivered through provinces, municipalities and public entities such as the Housing Development Agency (HDA). It is projected that by 2030, 70 per cent of South Africa’s population will be living in cities and towns, and primarily in informal settlements (Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs 2015). The department is reviewing housing legislation and related policies to transition from a narrow focus on housing alone to a more holistic view of human settlements. has a bond or co-owns), rents or occupies rent-free: What can we take from the above chart? Formal residential Urban settlement Informal residential Urban informal settlement Park Recreational Industrial Industrial area Collective living quarter Institution Commercial Hostel Table 2.2.2 Population classified by urban and rural for South Africa for the non -spatial statistical techniques for And, where are these houses? Another 5 million lived in RDP houses where no titles had yet been issued due to systemic inefficiencies. For example in the 4th graph “The estimated number of adult South Africans within each race group that lived in each type of dwelling in 2014” the population bar for whites seems to indicate that they around one million of them whilst the population bar for Indians indicates that there are around four million Indians. When we take into account partial home ownership, we see that home ownership jumps to similar levels across all race groups, although the proportions of black and coloured South Africans that own their homes have decreased quite considerably from their peak in 2008 around the time of the global economic crash, again pointing towards the relatively more precarious state of home financing for black and coloured households, perhaps because these groups do not have had the same economic buffers (such as generational wealth) in place to protect them when the market turns? Informal settlement upgrading is commonly practised worldwide, but often in technical ways, paying little attention to the physical environment. To truly understand the above breakdown though, we need to look at the raw numbers (estimated based on the number of South Africans in 2015 aged 20+ according to Wikipedia). As seen in Figure 1, by 2050 Africa’s young population, i.e., those aged between 0 and 24 years old, will increase by nearly 50 percent. By comparison, the largest percentage of households that lived in dwellings that were either paid off or being occupied rent-free were found in Limpopo (85,9%) and Eastern Cape (84,7%) while the smallest percentages were observed in Gauteng (52,4%) and Western Cape (58,7%). South Africa is characterised by various forms of inequality, which are magnified in informal settlements. Another interesting trend for me was the high level of black South Africans that do own their own homes. An estimated 3 billion people will require adequate and affordable housing by 2030. In practice this is more complicated than first appears. This page shows South Africa's population density map from 2002 to 2019 for South Africa and shows how Gauteng is under ever increasing pressure as more and more people move into the province to look for work. I’d love to see more data on the type of dwellings that black South Africans own but StatsSA’s definition of such dwelling is quite clear: they are proper, planned, real homes. We’ve just seen that 14% of South Africans live in informal settlements but let’s break this statistic out further to see where South Africans of all walks of life live. Along with 1.9 million people in backyard shack, 2 million on farms belonging to others, and 17 million in communal areas, this means that in that year around 30 million people, nearly 60% of all South Africans, lived on land or in dwellings held outside of the cadastral system.’”, Please note that some of the charts showing absolute numbers had the figures for white and Indian/Asian South Africans swapped around. However, after peaking in 2008, their numbers had dipped sharply up until when the data stops in 2012. The municipality is home to 550 informal settlements that suffer from higher rates of fires, natural disasters, and crime than formal parts of the city. This is not to trivialise the issue though since another notable trend in this data is the stubborn persistency of the proportion of South Africans that remain living in an informal dwelling. I think the author might have accidentally swapped ‘Indian’ and ‘White” ethnic groups in some of the graphs. Part of this might be due to a failure in the formal housing market being able to keep up with our population growth despite the government having delivered nearly three million houses since 1994, forcing new entrants into informal dwellings. Do people in communal areas, around a third of the population, ‘own’ their homes? I would encourage the author to review their data and check for errors. It’s encouraging to see that most South Africans live in a formal house, but do we own our homes or do the banks own them? Marxist theory places particular emphasis on the people controlling the “means of production” which refers less to the land that people live on and more to the land that is used to produce food and create wealth through natural resources, amongst other things. The provision of affordable housing is an important aspect of supporting the housing market. The executive summary of the above-linked report gives us the answer straight away: 14% of South Africans live in an informal settlement (1 in 7), 7% live in traditional dwellings (like a tribal hut) and 78% of South Africans live in a formal dwelling (53% of us outright own these dwellings and 10% of us partially own them; I assume the rest rent): We’ve just seen that 14% of South Africans live in informal settlements but let’s break this statistic out further to see where South Africans of all walks of life live. It’s also a complex topic and it’s one that is dearly in need of some facts behind it if we are to figure out how to navigate this issue as South Africans. South Africans have a wonderful resource in StatsSA. It’s one of the most divisive, emotional topics in South Africa. Home ownership levels peaked in the mid-2000s for other race groups before slowly declining, likely also in response to the general downward trend in the economy. While we see movement and trends in other dwelling types across racial groups, 1 in 7 (mostly black) South Africans have continued to live in an informal dwelling over the past couple of decades. Informal dwellings were most common in the City of Cape Town (19,6%), Johannesburg (19,1%) and Ekurhuleni (18,4%), and least common in Nelson Mandela Bay (7,1%). One of the annual surveys that StatsSA conducts is called the General Household Survey (you can read the latest survey report here).

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