Surge in women-headed households in South Africa amid economic challenges

IOL News

28-05-2025

Statistics South Africa has revealed that 42.4% of households are headed by women.
Image: Yan Krukau / Pexels
Amid the persistent gender pay gap and the rise in unemployment in the country, more than two-fifths (42.4%) of households in South Africa were headed by women in 2024, Statistics South Africa's (Stats SA) general household survey has shown.
According to the latest World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Report, South African women are paid between 23% and 35% less than men.
According to the survey, the situation was most common in rural areas, particularly in the Eastern Cape (48.8%) and KwaZulu-Natal (46.8%).
Women-headed households were least common in Gauteng (37.3%).
The household survey, which provides a snapshot of progress achieved in basic government services and identifies persistent service delivery gaps, was released on Tuesday.
It found that a third (31.4%) of children lived with both parents, while 45.5% lived with only their mothers.
More than one-tenth (11.7%) were orphaned, having lost one or both parents.
Almost one-fifth (18.8%) of children lived with neither of their biological parents.
More than one-quarter (26.9%) of households consisted of a single person, while 39.4% were nuclear households comprising parents and children.
The skip generation households, in which grandparents lived with grandchildren, comprised 4.2% of all households.
'The latter was most common in the Eastern Cape (7.7%) and Limpopo (6.9%),' read the report.
'Families and households are profoundly important to the developmental, emotional, and cognitive growth of children, and parents and/or caregivers can play a central role in the development of children."
The unemployment rate currently stands at 32.9%, and this could push many South Africans towards social grants.
According to Stats SA, the number of individuals receiving social grants increased from 12.8% in 2003 to 30.9% in 2019.
The number surged to 40.1% in 2024 due to the introduction of the special Covid-19 Social Relief of Distress (SRD).
'Compared to 2019, a much higher percentage of youth received grants in 2024 after the age of 18 due to the introduction of SRD.'
The percentage of households that considered social grants as the main source of income increased steadily from 21.3% in 2009 to 28.8% in 2020, before falling back to 23.8% in 2024.
Grants were particularly important as a main source of income for households in the Eastern Cape (38.9%), Northern Cape (34.4%), and Limpopo (33.8%).
In terms of medical aid access, approximately three out of 20 South Africans had access to a medical aid scheme in 2024.
Coverage slightly declined from 15.9% in 2002 to 15.5% in 2024. The highest coverage rates were in Western Cape (25.4%) and Gauteng (21.3%), while the lowest were in Limpopo (10.0%) and KwaZulu-Natal (10.2%).
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