Census 2022: Gauteng sees drop in number of people in single home

Premier Panyaza Lesufi received the Gauteng Chapter of the official 2022 population census from Statistician-General Risenga Maluleke in Midrand on Wednesday morning.

Gauteng has over 5.3 million households, compared to 3.9 million 12 years ago.

However, Maluleke says the number of people in a single home has declined.

"The house size was 3.8 in 200, it was 3.4 in 2011,  it was 3.1 and 2.8 (in 2022). The one other thing that makes the households become smaller and smaller is that we have built low-cost housing in the form of RDPs - so people have been unbundled from the houses they used to stay in Soweto - or any other neighbourhood. Number two is that people now rent back rooms."

The 2022 census reports that 33.5% of households in Gauteng reported that they resided in government-subsidised dwellings or RDP homes.

At the same time, nine out of every 10 households in Gauteng also have access to flush toilets.

The stats come after the recent cholera outbreak that claimed more than 40 lives earlier this year, the bulk of which came from Gauteng, highlighted the poor state of water and sanitation infrastructure.

While access to piped water has improved over the years – the rise in informal settlements has resulted in some regression.

In 1996, 3.8% of Gauteng households had no access to piped water. Maluleke said this figure continued to decline until the latest census.

"We had actually declined a lot in 2011 – but what has happened is because of informal settlements -it’s actually increased again from 1.8% to 2.1%," explained Maluleke.

Lesufi said the stats contained in the province’s census report will help the government take a targeted approach to infrastructure development.

"In resetting Gauteng, it means that we need to improve especially our underground infrastructure for water and sewer. Your information assists us to know areas of intervention and areas of improvement, but also areas where we need to manage things better."

Following the deadly waterborne disease outbreak, the water and sanitation department and the Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality committed to working together to fix the longstanding infrastructure issues hampering the efficient supply of potable water in Hammanskraal and surrounding areas.

While the source of the outbreak was never confirmed, residents pointed to the bungling of the refurbishment project at the Rooiwal wastewater treatment plant.

The city said it will cost R4 billion to get the plant to work optimally by 2026.

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