Statistics South Africa’s (StatsSA) recently-released mid-year population estimate (MYPE) puts the country’s population at 58.78-million, more than 1-million up from the 57.73-million recorded in last year’s MYPE.

According to StatsSA’s estimates, people between the ages of 18 and 34 in South Africa make up nearly a third of the population at roughly 17.84-million, of which 9.04-million are male and 8.80-million are female.

Roughly 30% of the country’s youth live in Gauteng (5.10-million) with nearly 20% living in KwaZulu-Natal (3.47-million), these provinces collectively make up nearly half of the country’s youth population. The Free State and the Northern Cape have the lowest numbers of youth at 4.7% and 2.0% respectively, while the Western Cape accounts for 11.5% of the country’s youth.

Only approximately 13% of youths across the country are graduates, with a number of factors effecting their ability to graduate.

The highest number of immigrants made their way to the Western Cape and Gauteng this year. The net international migration to South Africa reached over one million with 47.5% going to Gauteng and another 11.6% to the Western Cape. The Free State and the Eastern Cape received the smallest number of international migrants, 3.1% and 3.6% respectively.

South Africa as a nation has a high number of youth, a sector of locals that could contribute to the country significantly. Unfortunately, they usually fall under one of three categories: uneducated, unemployed or unemployable.

In the first quarter of 2019, 39.5% of the country’s youth was unemployed. Roughly 46.8% of those between the ages of 18 and 34 are not getting tertiary education, employed or undergoing training. The majority of this percentage are female. Only 28.8% of youth in South Africa have a tertiary qualification.

Overall our country has a lot of potential to empower and change the lives of youths but only time will tell if it is possible to turn the situation around and see some more positive statistics in the future.

Picture: Unsplash

Source: StatsSA