Playing with Numbers

More blacks live in homes which are fully paid for than any other race group, the SA Institute of Race Relations said on Monday. (Now before the Ghost of Terblanche gets all in a knot and Pieter Mulder calls up Mr. Constand, read on a bit.)

The study conducted by the SAIRR found some 60 percent of black households in the country had fully paid-up the homes in which they lived in 2009, compared to 46 percent for other race groups. (Can we be more specific here? 46% average across or for all other Race groups?)

The institute said the higher home ownership figures for blacks could be explained by the transfer of government-subsidised houses. (Thus only fully paid for in theory...)

In the country's two most affluent provinces, Gauteng and the Western Cape, 34 and 42 percent of households respectively had fully paid off their homes.

The less wealthy Eastern Cape and Limpopo had higher home ownership figures, with 71 percent of households in both provinces having paid off their homes.

"The total number of households that owned and had fully paid off their homes, out of a total of 13.8 million South African households, was just over 56 percent. Out of the total fully paid homes, male-headed households made up 56 percent and female 44 percent." Seventy percent of all households headed by women had fully paid off their homes, while only half the households headed by men had fully paid up theirs. - Sapa

If you are fully confused about the numbers now, allow us to make it worse.

The author states in the first sentence that "more blacks...than any other race group" but the rest of the figures do not reflect this except for the blanket statement of 46%.

The next question we have then is the breakdown of the 46% and how it is made up. Can we not use the standard of 'per 100 000'? Then you can really compare, as it will be shack with shacks.

And speaking of which, what counts as a home? Does the 60% include shacks and are they thus fully paid up? We can only hope not.

With around 50 million people in SA of which 79.4% are black, that gives us 10.96 million black households with 1 732 604 still living in shacks according to the same SAIRR.

Now the 2001 census data reflects the following:

The percentage of Black African households that have a flush or chemical toilet is 41.9%. Refuse is removed from 45.3% of Black African households by the municipality at least once a week, and 11.0% have no rubbish disposal. Some 17.9% of Black Africans have running water inside their dwelling, 51.7% have running water on their property, and 80.2% have access to running water. The percentage of Black African households using electricity for cooking is 39.3%, for heating, 37.2%, and for lighting, 62.0%. - wikipedia

60% have houses that are paid, but not all of them have a flush toilet, refuse removal, nor running water or electricity. So what is actually the good news?

Very pretty piece of writing, but it does not address all the issues.

Just a quick gloss over some facts that attempt to make the government look good and ourselves content, but without proper in-depth analysis of anything else that is important.

We can move into a tent and thus count as a household with a fully paid home, but would that really be acceptable?