Main dwelling types people in South Africa are living in?
Date: 6 May 2019 Category: Stock Market |
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Have you ever wondered what the main dwelling types are people in South Africa are living in? How many households stay in houses, townhouses, flats, informal dwellings, cluster homes etc? We take a look at these numbers based on the results from the General Household Survey (GHS) for 2017
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Dwelling types South Africans are living in
So before we take a look at the main dwelling types South Africans are living in, lets take a look at how many households there are in South Africa? South Africa's total population is estimated to be 57.7 million people (as at mid year 2018 and estimated by Statistics South Africa). The 201 GHS survey estimated that in total there were 16.1 million households in South Africa. So this gives us a average household/ family size in South Africa of 3.58 people per family in South Africa. So in which type of dwellings does all of South Africa's households stay? The summary below shows the number of households that live in various dwelling types, based on the data published by the 2017 General Household Survey (GHS) published by Statistics South Africa
- Dwelling/house or brick/concrete block structure on a separate stand or yard or on farm: 10 082 951 (62.2%)
- Informal dwelling/shack not in backyard, e.g. in an informal/squatter settlement or on farm: 1 334 598 (8.2%)
- Traditional dwelling/hut/structure made of traditional materials: 897 592 (5.5%)
- Informal dwelling/shack in backyard: 869 229 (5.4%)
- Room/flatlet on a property or a larger dwelling servants' quarters/granny flat: 842 793 (5.2%)
- Flat or apartment in a block of flats: 803 199 (5.0%)
- Dwelling/house/flat/room in backyard: 620 076 (3.8%)
- Semi-detached house: 277 298 (1.7%)
- Town house (semi-detached house in complex): 242 437 (1.5%)
- Other: 116 778 (0.7%)
- Cluster house in complex: 99 663 (0.6%)
- Caravan/tent: 12 493 (0.1%)
So according to the GHS, 62.2% of South African's live in a house or brick/concrete structure on a private piece of land or farm, while 8.2% of South African households live in informal settlements in squatter camps or on farms. And sadly 25 years after the dawn of democracy, the government of the day has failed to provide housing for almost 10% of households in South Africa, this while billions have been squandered via state capture, fruitless and wasteful expenditure by departments such as fancy cars for minister and deputy ministers etc, poorly run SOE's, over inflated civil service to name but a few. It shows the priorities of government is not on the people who elected them, but rather in serving their own self interests. Lets hope with elections coming up, the winds of change will change the fortunes of the millions of people still living in informal settlements without any real access to municipal services.