Despite notable progress in the provision of water services and sanitation (WSS) in South
Africa, considerable gaps remain. It is publically acknowledged that South Africa has recently
met is Millennium Development Goal of halving water and sanitation backlogs. However,
significant deficits remain, especially in the case of sanitation. These shortfalls are unevenly
distributed across provinces and can be tracked by socio-economic status. This paper seeks to
examine and identify those socio-economic factors that may affect poor WSS provision in South
Africa. Using the 2011 South African General Household Survey (GHS), socio-economic
indicators and access to WSS were analysed. The results of the descriptive statistics and
multivariate analysis indicate that access to WSS is largely determined by province, race and
geographical location. It appears that higher quality levels of sanitation are less accessible
relative to piped water access. Identifying these socio-economic factors affecting WSS provides
obvious policy direction and better-targeted water infrastructural development.