Future Prospects for South African Youths
– Clem Sunter

SA’s youth a time bomb:

Here are some interesting statistics regarding the youth, their numbers and their unemployment which may interest some readers.

The article is not really about race – it’s actually about numbers of the youth – but thanks to Stats SA who do still base their reports on race this is the way it comes out.

I have extracted and condensed the figures to highlight the youth – the future of the country, the figures being courtesy of Statistics SA, 2014:

Age Group
0-4,
Black – 4,936,601
Coloured – 420,171,
Asian – 99,256,
White – 263,301;

Age 5-9,
Black – 4,541,523,
Coloured – 428,867,
Asian – 96,953,
White – 269,367;

Age 10-14,
Black – 4,303,892,
Coloured – 444,983,
Asian – 93,863,
White – 280,988;

Age 15-19,
Black – 4,357,984,
Coloured – 451,117,
Asian – 101,609,
White – 306,851;

Age 20-24,
Black – 4,417,106,
Coloured – 427,547,
Asian – 109,668,
White – 312,797.

Totals:
Blacks – 22,557,106,
Coloureds – 2,172,685,
Asian – 501,349,
White – 1,433,304.

Ratios:
Blacks – 84,6%,
Coloureds – 8,2%,
Asian – 1,8%,
White – 5,4%.

Comparatively the ratios for the entire population are
80% Black,
9% Coloured,
2,5% Asian and
8,5% White

Total population being 54m.

If one had to plot the birth rate of the youth, dating back to 1990, from the above table, one would note the following:

The figures for White, Coloured and Asian youth have remained fairly static since 1990, whilst those for the Blacks have increased steadily since 2005 to a point where they now account for almost 85% of their age group.

Since 1990 the numbers of Black youth – aged 0-24 – have increased by 11% whilst those of the Coloureds, Asians and Whites have decreased by 1%, 9% and 15% respectively.

Simply put, the Black birth rate is increasing fast – steadily – that of Coloureds is decreasing slowly, that of Asians decreased between 1990 and 2005 but is now increasing slightly again and the White birth rate is declining rapidly – and steadily – and has been doing so since 1990.

We can thus estimate that by 2030 – based on current growth – for the age group 0-24 there will be 91 Blacks, 7 Coloureds, 1 Asian and 1 White in every group of 100 youngsters.

Those who thus keep harping on about driving the Whites into the sea should not bother anymore as we’re disappearing fast anyway and by 2030 are liable to account for less than 2% of the total population.

The bad news of course is that starvation, unemployment and misery are likely to still be present, but they’ll apply generally only to Blacks – their being over 90% of the population by that stage – and generally to young Blacks.

At present there are in fact 4,9 million Black youngsters aged 0-4 whereas the total white population is 4,5 million.

Consider also that there are another 4,5 million Black youngsters aged 5-9, another 4,3 million aged 10-14 and another 4,3 million aged 15-19 – hopefully all at school – and you begin to see the enormity of the challenge facing the country and the government in attempting to feed, house, educate and otherwise sustain such numbers.

Regarding unemployment amongst the youth – calculated at 48% across the board by Stats SA – it would seem that of a total population for this group of 10,4 million, 5 million are thus unemployed, and even more disturbing is that at least 4,2 million of these are Black.

Considering that the entire White population is about 4,5 million this is a figure that should worry all with regard to education, crime, service delivery, government expenditure, job creation and socio-economic woes.

The above all give us pointers to where the country is going and most importantly what problems can be foreseen.

The youth – aged 15-24 – currently account for 20% of the total population, some 10 million of them, whilst the young – aged 0-14 – form 30% of the population and number some 16 million.

Add these two groups together – 50% of the entire population and 26 million in number – and you see the size of the problem facing us unless jobs are created, fast, or the Black birth rate is slowed.

Quite noticeably, AIDS hasn’t had the effect it was claimed it would have and as a result the young Black population is exploding way beyond what the country can cope with, now or in the future.

Unfortunately it would seem that the government, AKA the ANC, are either unaware or uncaring of this growing problem when they should be seriously worried for grants, subsidies, education, housing, services – all things relating to this age group in fact – are going to eat an increasingly larger portion of their budget, regardless of what they do now.

The South African economy needs to grow fast, starting now, if it is going to absorb another 26 million job seekers over the next 15 years.

We can’t export them, we have to create jobs for them! For this reason alone the government should be actively creating an environment wherein jobs can be easily created, they should be attempting to slow the Black birth rate and they should be concentrating on creating capitalistic solutions for hungry mouths, rather than attempting to instil socialistic ideas in an exploding population of young hopefuls.

If they are not doing so, and to all intents and purposes it seems they are not, then SA is heading for a huge problem, notwithstanding Eskom and the rest , in that there will be more young people than there will be enough food, drink, housing, education and services to cater for them.

Socialism is definitely not going to feed that many mouths and grants and subsidies will eventually cripple any future government.

By: Clem Sunter

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