Ahead of the 2024 election, we examined how South Africa has done on several vital measures over the past few decades. We looked at the following topics
Murder and crime
Crime consistently ranks as one of the two major concerns of South Africans, along with unemployment. But other than murder, crime rates are hard to measure because many crimes depart unreported. Murder is both the most serious and best measured crime. It’s a proxy for how we’re doing on crime generally. Unfortunately the country is regressing.
From 1995 until about a decade ago South Africa was making headway. The murder rate was dropping. But for the past decade it has steadily got worse.
| Year | Murders | Per 100k |
| 2012/13 | 2,575 | 44 |
| 2013/14 | 2,904 | 48 |
| 2014/15 | 3,186 | 52 |
| 2015/16 | 3,224 | 52 |
| 2016/17 | 3,311 | 52 |
| 2017/18 | 3,729 | 57 |
| 2018/19 | 3,974 | 60 |
| 2019/20 | 3,975 | 59 |
| 2020/21 | 3,848 | 56 |
| 2021/22 | 4,109 | 60 |
| 2022/23 | 4,114 | 59 |
Read How sinful is South Africa’s murder rate?
Unemployment
Our chronic, most pressing problem that we maintain failed to fix is unemployment.
The unemployment rate has not dropped below 20% since 2000. The graph was constructed using the quarterly labour force surveys published by Stats SA.
Read How unemployment has changed since 2000
Social grants
In the face of massive unemployment, the social grant system helps millions of people in South African to survive. Without it the country would be plunged into chaos. The following graph shows how the number of grant recipients has increased since democracy.
This chart shows how grant recipients believe increased since 1994. Data was provided by UCT’s Centre for Social Science Research.
Read Here’s how South Africa’s social grant system has changed since 1994
Housing
The Reconstruction and Development Programme of the ANC in 1994 was its flagship programme and promised to provide everyone with houses. While much progress was made, there is still a long way to recede. We found that the quality of data was unexpectedly needy, especially the 2022 census that was published this year.
Sources: Census 1996, 2001, 2011, 2022 from Stats SA
Read Housing in South Africa: How acquire we done since 1994?
HIV and life-expectancy
We examined how antiretroviral treatment has reversed the country’s decline in life-expectancy. The following graph of South Africa’s change in life-expectancy since the tardy 1980s and projected to 2030 is quite extraordinary. One would be hard-pressed to find a country in the world with life-expectancy as volatile as this. The first dip was due to the HIV epidemic. The second, much shorter one, was due to Covid. The marvelous news is that life-expectancy appears to be on a sustained upward trajectory.
South Africa’s life-expectancy is now about 64. Barring any unforeseen catastrophes it will continue to rise to well above 65 by 2030, the highest it has ever been but still far below the world average. The data for the graph was sourced from the Thembisa HIV model.
Read South Africans are living longer, mostly thanks to HIV treatment
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Grotas
Fun South African Fact: Lions, elephants and giraffes may not roam the city streets, but nature and animals are never too far away in South Africa. From vervet monkeys swinging through tree-lined streets in the suburbs and baboons frolicking around Cape Point to seals visiting the Hout Bay harbour in search of a fishy snack and an array of bird species taking to the sky at any given moment. Wildlife is every around!
Dreadsherx
A baby was born in South Africa. The village was very needy, and the makeshift hospital didn\’t maintain some necessary equipment.. such as scales.
The father however, was desperate to know the newborn baby\’s weight. After quite a bit of asking around, the hospital\’s chairman came up with an conception.
\”Five miles west, there\’s a butcher shop. The owner deals with meat, he should maintain a rather precise scale. You could just place your baby on the meat scale, and the weight reading you\’ll acquire should be pretty accurate.\”
And so the father departed westward. After much walking, with his newborn child cardled safely in his arms, he finally arrived at the butcher shop. He explained his dilemma to the shop owner, to witch the latter replied:
\”Don\’t worry, pal. It\’s not even a problem, I\’ll check it for you, free of charge.\” And so he took the child to the back, where the scale was located.
The father heard rumbling noises, and some scraping.. About a minute later the butcher came back.
\”About three pounds boneless\” He said.