Major Social Trends and Challenges

The Ten Year Review (completed in 2003) reflects progress made since 1994, and highlights new emerging issues. The challenges of the next ten years arise from lessons learnt from this assessment of the first decade of freedom. The Ten Year Review revealed four social changes that have taken place in the past decade. The four major social changes were:

• Households: Between 1996 to 2001, the South African population increased by 11%, from 40,4 million to 44,8 million. In contrast, the number of households increased by 30%, from 9,7 million to 11,8 million, which is almost three times as much as the rate of population increase during the same period. Households “unbundled” and decreased in size (from an average of 4,5 to 3,8). The change in
  household size thus had implications for services that are delivered at household level, for example housing, water and sanitation, electricity.
• Economically active population: During the period 1995 to 2002, the population grew at about 2% a year. During the same period, though, the economically active population grew by about 4% a year, which was double the population growth rate. This translated into an increase from 11,5 million to 15,4 million (35%). The number of jobs grew by 1,6 million (12%), having accounted for jobs lost. The new
  job seekers are young adults and older people who had not previously considered themselves to be part of the labour market. Many of them are African women from rural areas. This phenomenon is a product of the freedom achieved, but also demonstrates the emphasis on the empowerment of women and gender equity and equality.
• Economy:A structural change in the formal economy has been observed since 1995, with a shift away from public services, construction and mining, to the service sector, where employment doubled. This phenomenon led to the emergence of two economies in the country: one is advanced, sophisticated, based on skilled labour, and becoming more globally competitive; the other is mainly informal, marginalised, and unskilled. Despite the impressive performance of the “first economy”, the benefits thereof have not meaningfully reached the “second economy”. One of the manifestations of this is that there is a shortage of skilled labour on the one hand, while millions of people of working age are unemployed. The “second economy” could fall even further behind should the government not intervene in a purposeful manner.
• Migration: During the past decade, there has been an increased movement of people from rural to urban areas. Almost 20% of people living in the major metropolitan and other urban areas are new migrants. This phenomenon adds pressure on service delivery and economic opportunities in urban areas where service delivery have already been stretched to the maximum. There is a consequent loss of ablebodied and skilled people and opportunities in rural areas. This situation causes decreased social capabilities in these areas, which in turn affects social relations and links to authority structures, reducing the potential for people to interact on a collective basis. On the other hand, in-migration of economically active people enhances the development potential, but increasing numbers of migrants tend to over-stretch service delivery and employment opportunities.

These major social and economic trends, which demonstrate shifts and new challenges in society for the decade ahead, could be compounded by the impact of the HIV & Aids epidemic and other demographic dynamics. Successes in some areas continuously highlight new challenges in others, which should urge all stakeholders in society to make even faster progress in pursuing the ideal of a united,
non-racial, non-sexist and democratic society. Strategic direction, purposeful action and the involvement of all are required to effectively address these challenges and to push back the frontiers of poverty. The actions of civil society and the private sector should be aligned with the national interest to strengthen efforts in this regard.

A move to a higher growth and development trajectory requires reinforcing the consolidation of democracy with measures aimed at integrating all citizens into a growing economy from which they can benefit. This aim would require the following interventions:

• an all-encompassing framework defining a shared destiny (a people’s contract), harnessing the efforts of all sectors of society around common development objectives;
• improved performance by the state, focused at decisive interventions that would remove obstacles that delay service delivery;
• addressing the consequences of the social transition by improving the absorption capacity of urban and rural areas with economic potential, and accelerating the delivery of basic services, skills and labour market intelligence in other areas from which most of the migration takes place;
• improving the southern African regional environment and implementing NEPAD, in order to join forces and resources in this region in an effort to promote growth and development in southern and sub-Saharan Africa.
  

In terms of the population policy, the government and its partners in civil society have to jointly assume responsibility for tackling current population, development and environment challenges, to enhance sustainable human development and the establishment of a society that provides a high and equitable quality of life for all South Africans.

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