Understanding the underlying dynamics of
population change is critical for national planning.
This analysis explores South Africa’s fertility,
mortality and migration outlooks, with a particular
emphasis on the uncertainty surrounding
migration. Using the International Futures (IFs)
model and data from the South African 2011
National Census data, we simulated three potential
population futures for South Africa to 2030 and
compare these to the figures in the National
Development Plan (NDP) 2030. According to our
mid-range forecasts, by 2030 South Africa’s
population is projected to increase to:
64,4 million with rapidly declining in-migration
66,4 million with relatively stable in-migration
68,8 million with rapidly increasing in-migration
Apart from being much higher, this range of
potential futures in 2030 is much wider than the
one set out in the NDP. In a second step, our
extended analysis up to 2050 explores the impacts
of these scenarios in the longer term. There we
find an even greater range of uncertainty to be
considered by national planners and policy makers
in South Africa. Using the IFs Base Case, we
conclude with an exploration of forecasts at the
provincial level and find a higher baseline forecast
than the NDP for many of South Africa’s provinces,
most notably for the Eastern Cape, Gauteng,
KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape. These
findings are important at the provincial and
national level, because the demographic profile
of a population has implications across all areas
of public policy, including service delivery,
employment, education, and healthcare.