Key figures and core demographic trends for South Africa.
Population
64.7M
Fertility Rate
2.21
Life Expectancy
66.3y
GDP / capita
$6.6K
Pop. Growth
1.15%
Net Migration
146.4K
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Provisional fertility nowcast
Source: National Statistical Offices or Ministries of Health / Interior · compiled by @BirthGauge. Full nowcast table · provisional, may be revised.
TFR 2024
2.21
TFR 2025
2.21
Rates per 1,000 people per year — not absolute birth or death counts. When the birth rate exceeds the death rate, natural increase is positive (before migration).
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National accounts and international trade.
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International trade for South Africa — product exports and imports from OEC / BACI.
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Net migration, permits, and the foreign-born population of South Africa, plus where migrants come from and where the diaspora lives.
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Largest foreign-born communities in South Africa by country of birth (2024) · arrow shows change since 2010.
Top destinations for people born in South Africa who now live abroad (2024) · arrow shows change since 2010.
Age structure, projections, and population composition.
That is 61% larger than in 2025. The animation freezes the latest fertility rate. It is a model, not an official forecast. UN World Population Prospects 2024 medium is 94 million in 2100 — lower than this run (low 65 million, high 134 million). UN lets fertility change over the century and includes some migration; this run does not.
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Life expectancy, death rates and child mortality as far back as vital registration and historical reconstructions allow (from 1960), plus infant and maternal mortality.
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Pre-1960 life expectancy and long child-mortality series are from Our World in Data (Riley, Zijdeman et al., HMD, UN). Historic crude death rates cover countries in the Human Mortality Database only — Sweden from 1751, France from 1816, and so on. Crude rates are not age-standardized. See also the mortality explorer.
Spending, capacity and attainment. Coverage is thinner than for demographic series — most figures come from periodic surveys rather than continuous registration.
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Family, crime, housing and religion indicators.
Homicide rate
43.7
Divorce rate
—
Births outside marriage
—
Home ownership
—
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5per 1,000
2019
Only one year available — not enough points for a trend line.
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Age structure, fertility gaps, and migration change budgets and electorates. This is the constraint, not a manifesto.
National fertility, age structure, and migration set the size of the next workforce and the next electorate.
The longer argument — pensions, schools, coalitions, and what migration does and does not offset — is on why birthrates matter. To turn this country’s series into a memo you can forward, open the briefing builder — generate a draft, write it yourself, then expand any paragraph.
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Source: UN DESA International Migrant Stock 2024
Source: UN DESA International Migrant Stock 2024
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