Mid-year stats have just seen South Africa’s colourful population standing at an estimated 55.9 million people.

While I am not too sure how they are able to estimate the population in a country where many of the people live in absolute squalor, I am sure they have their ways.

The stats were released at a briefing by Statistician General Pali Lehohla. Here’s what he told us:

• 8% of that number is older than 60 years – and the life expectancy for men is 59.7 years while for women it’s 65.1
• 30.1% is younger than 15 years
• 51% of the population is female
• The infant mortality rate for this year is estimated at 33.7 per 1,000 live births
• Between 2002 and 2016 fertility declined from an average of 2.65 children per woman to 2.43

The stats information also contained a lot about HIV/AIDs, a prevalent issue in our country. According to bdlive:

The overall HIV prevalence rate at about 12.7% of the total population. The total number of people living with HIV is estimated at about 7.03 million this year.

For adults aged 15-49 years, an estimated 18.9% of the population is HIV positive.

Then, there’s information about migration. Every year, thousands of people migrate to look for job opportunities in order to obtain a better life.

Between 2011-2016, 247 437 people migrated from the Eastern Cape and 305 030 from Limpopo. In that same period, Gauteng received 1,2 million people, while the Western Cape only had an influx of 363 114.

Gauteng is also the most populous province with 13.5 million people (that’s 24% of the population), followed by KZN with 11.1 million (19.9%).

And there you have it.

[source:bdlive]