Figure 4: South Africa’s demographic transition, 1960-2050

Figure 4 shows the total population size, crude birth and death rate trends, and projections for South Africa from 1960 to 2050.26 The graph shows that South African birth and death rates have shown a declining trend since 1960. The crude birth rate has fallen by more than half from 41.1 live births per 1,000 people in 1960 to 19.8 in 2020, and is projected to almost half again to 10.6 by 2050.26 South Africa’s death rate per 1,000 people fell consistently from 17.4 to 8.04 from 1960 to 1991, after which it began to rise again due to the HIV/AIDS pandemic and peaked at 13.99 deaths per 1,000 people in 2005.26 Due to the widespread roll out of Anti-Retroviral Therapy for people living with HIV, the death rate has since continued to fall since then and is projected to continue to do so until 2025.26 The country’s population is projected to continue to increase to over 75.5 million people by 2050.26

Figure 4: South Africa’s demographic transition, 1960-2050

While South Africa’s population continues to grow (perhaps faster than anticipated), both birth and death rates are steadily declining. Source: The World Bank, 2022

In a 2017 paper, demographer Tom Moultrie argues that South Africa’s demographic transition is almost complete, yet the “youth bulge” which the demographic dividend requires to deliver economic growth has not materialised.27 According to a narrower definition of the demographic dividend put forward by the United Nations (UN), the window to reap the benefits of a demographic dividend opens when the dependent population aged 0-14 falls below 30% and before the elderly dependent population aged 65 and older is above 15% of the total population.27 Figure 5 shows that South Africa’s youth dependent population fell below 30% in 2009 and the elderly dependent population will not have crossed the 15% threshold by 2050.