scholarly journals Black living standards in South Africa before democracy: New evidence from height

2018 ◽  
Vol 114 (1/2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bokang Mpeta ◽  
Johan Fourie ◽  
Kris Inwood

Very little income or wage data were systematically recorded about the living standards of South Africa’s black majority during much of the 20th century. We used four data sets to provide an alternative measure of living standards – namely stature – to document, for the first time, living standards of black South Africans over the course of the 20th century. We found evidence to suggest that living standards in the first three decades of the century were particularly poor, perhaps because of the increasingly repressive labour policies in urban areas and famine and land expropriation that weighed especially heavily on the Basotho. The decade following South Africa’s departure from the gold standard, a higher international gold price and the demand for manufactured goods from South Africa as a consequence of World War II seem to have benefitted both black and white South Africans. The data also allowed us to disaggregate by ethnicity within the black population group, revealing levels of inequality within race groups that have been neglected in the literature. Finally, we compared black and white living standards, and revealed the large and widening levels of inequality that characterised 20th-century South Africa.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lactatia Matsie Motsuku ◽  
Wenlong Carl Chen ◽  
Mazvita Molleen Muchengeti ◽  
Tamlyn Mac Quene ◽  
Patricia Kellett ◽  
...  

Abstract BackgroundSouth Africa (SA) has experienced a rapid transition in the Human Development Index (HDI) over the past decade, which had an effect on the incidence and mortality rates of colorectal cancer (CRC). This study aims to provide CRC incidence and mortality trends by population group and sex in SA from 2002 to 2014.MethodsIncidence data were extracted from the South African National Cancer Registry and mortality data obtained from Statistics South Africa (STATS SA), for the period 2002 to 2014. Age-standardised incidence rates (ASIR) and age-standardised mortality rates (ASMR) were calculated using the STATS SA mid-year population as the denominator and the Segi world standard population data for standardisation. A Joinpoint regression analysis was computed for the CRC ASIR and ASMR by population group and sex.ResultsA total of 33,232 incident CRC cases and 26,836 CRC deaths were reported during the study period. Of the CRC cases reported, 54% were males and 46% were females, and among deaths reported, 47% were males and 53% were females. Overall, there was a 2.5% annual average percentage change (AAPC) increase in ASIR from 2002 to 2014 (95% CI: 0.6- 4.5, p-value <0.001). For ASMR overall, there was 1.3% increase from 2002 to 2014 (95% CI: 0.1- 2.6, p-value <0.001). The ASIR and ASMR among population groups were stable, with the exception of the Black population group. The ASIR increased consistently at 4.3% for black males (95% CI: 1.9- 6.7, p-value <0.001) and 3.4% for black females (95% CI: 1.5- 5.3, p-value <0.001) from 2002 to 2014, respectively. Similarly, ASMR for black males and females increased by 4.2% (95% CI: 2.0- 6.5, p-value <0.001) and 3.4% (, 95%CI: 2.0- 4.8, p-value <0.01) from 2002 to 2014, respectively.ConclusionsThe disparities in the CRC incidence and mortality trends may reflect socioeconomic inequalities across different population groups in SA. The rapid increase in CRC trends among the Black population group is concerning and requires further investigation and increased efforts for cancer prevention, early screening and diagnosis, as well as better access to cancer treatment.


Dermatology ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 235 (5) ◽  
pp. 396-399 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caradee Yael Wright ◽  
Thandi Kapwata ◽  
Elvira Singh ◽  
Adele C. Green ◽  
Peter Baade ◽  
...  

The incidence of cutaneous melanoma (CM) is increasing in countries around the world. However, little is known about melanoma trends in African countries by population group. We studied CM mortality in South Africa from 1997 to 2014 to partly address this knowledge gap. Unit record mortality data for all South Africans who died from CM (n = 8,537) were obtained from Statistics South Africa. Join-point regression models were used to assess whether there was a statistically significant change in the direction and/or magnitude of the annual trends in CM mortality. A significant increasing trend of 11% per year was observed in age-adjusted mortality rates in men between 2000 and 2005 (p < 0.01), rising from 2 to 3 per 100,000. There was also a statistically significant increase of 180% per year among White South Africans from 1997 to 1999 (p < 0.05) and of 3% from 1999 to 2014 (p < 0.01). These results may be used to inform CM awareness campaigns and will motivate efforts to improve the collection and analysis of relevant statistics regarding the present burden of CM in South Africa.


2015 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 557-592 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joel Cabrita

AbstractThis article analyses the intersection between cosmopolitanism and racist ideologies in the faith healing practices of the Christian Catholic Apostolic Church in Zion. Originally from Illinois, USA, this organization was the period's most influential divine healing group. Black and white members, under the leadership of the charismatic John Alexander Dowie, eschewed medical assistance and proclaimed God's power to heal physical affliction. In affirming the deity's capacity to remake human bodies, church members also insisted that God could refashion biological race into a capacious spiritual ethnicity: a global human race they referred to as the “Adamic” race. Zionist universalist teachings were adopted by dispossessed and newly urbanized Boer ex-farmers in Johannesburg, Transvaal, before spreading to the soldiers of the British regiments recently arrived to fight the Boer states in the war of 1899–1902. Zionism equipped these estranged white “races” with a vocabulary to articulate political reconciliation and a precarious unity. But divine healing was most enthusiastically received among the Transvaal's rural Africans. Amidst the period's hardening segregation, Africans seized upon divine healing's innovative racial teachings, but both Boers and Africans found disappointment amid Zion's cosmopolitan promises. Boers were marginalized within the new racial regimes of the Edwardian empire in South Africa, and white South Africans had always been ambivalent about divine healing's incorporations of black Africans into a unitary race. This early history of Zionism in the Transvaal reveals the constriction of cosmopolitan aspirations amidst fast-narrowing horizons of race, nation, and empire in early twentieth-century South Africa.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 707-724
Author(s):  
FORTI ETIENNE LANGMIA

This article, which draws inspiration from the literary works of three South African writers, focuses on the two (amongst many) major historic periods in the life of the present-day nation described as post-apartheid South Africa. The two periods, evident in the works of Andre Brink, Zakes Mda and Nadine Gordimer under review, are the reign of apartheid and the transition to a democratic multiracial society built on the principles of equality and the respect of the rights and freedoms of South Africans.  From both historical and literary standpoints, the transition to multiracialism is the outcome of the struggle of the oppressed black population of South Africa against the oppressive monolithic racist regime which ruled the country on an official governance policy which it called ‘Apartheid’. In order to enforce this inhumane worldview, the said racist regime used means of brutality and savagery with the intention of transforming the country into a ‘white nation’ that would belong to a minority-turned majority known as the Afrikaners. The often callous and gruesome acts of inhumanity perpetrated by the different racist apartheid regimes (that ruled South Africa from 1948-1994) became a major concern to the world at large and South African anti-apartheid writers in particular.  Thus this category of the country’s writers tended to use literature as an instrument of protest against racial discrimination, which brought untold hardship to the black population. Andre Brink, Zakes Mda, and Nadine Gordimer are among the writers whose works vividly trace the South African experience from apartheid to post-apartheid eras. Brink, Mda and Gordimer in their respective works attempt to portray the endeavours and challenges of reconstructing the new nation from the debris of close to four decades of the brutal regime. The main issues discussed in this article are analyzed from New Historicist and Postcolonial perspectives due to the peculiar postcolonial nature of South Africa.


2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 81
Author(s):  
Matteo Sintini

<p>The Ludovico Quaroni's competition winner project for the urban park of the Tobacco Manufacturing and the Navile dockyard, although unrealised, still represents a sort of conclusive point of the search path (he died in 1987) of one of the most prominent characters of the Italian architectural scene – and not only - of the 20th century. Furthermore, the high number of contenders to the competition’s first stage (139) made the contest itself an extraordinary occasion of rethinking an important part of the city of Bologna, a somewhat hybrid part located on the verge of town historic centre and its first expansion and offered the chance of challenge for the mostly Italian architects. The Quaroni’s group was composed by many others architects including important authors of the reconstruction projects of Bologna in the years following World War II; their proposal aimed at bringing order in a non-connected urban context filled with many fragments of historical memories of the site. The process of spaces redefinition, as in the beginning projects of the architect’s career, is conducted with the tools of the “design” (as used by Manfredo Tafuri, 1964), as an instrument of territorial and urban areas re-composition, undertook through the conservation of trails, overlapped by a new system of episodes, keeping the idea of fragments, responding to the competition requirements. In fact, the project balances the new parts in strict relation with the pre-existing elements of the historic town centre, considering the tangible and material dimensions of the city. Such a new system is governed by a clear scheme of structured elements based on the project of void, provided with a clear formal image, whose final outcome is a figurative regeneration. In this idea and formal organism Quaroni developing many of his design principles, gives a personal interpretation to the contemporary issue of regeneration empowered by those reflections that had just entered in the much wider debate in the mid-eighties, about conservation and sustainability of historic centres and the natural environment. Notably, this issue is dealt with in a cultural environment such as the one of Bologna, a city that gave much to the debate on conservation of old towns (see the Cervellati plan); a discussion founding the Italian experience of the 20th century and particularly of its second half. From this point of view, the contribution of architects from Bologna at Quaroni’s project has therefore probably accounted for the special sensibility shown by the project on those matters. After giving up on Quaroni’s plan Aldo Rossi was chosen by the Municipality to develop the project; his ideas confirm, although with different outcomes, an approach based on the value of the conservation of memory and the use of clear forms as means of urban regeneration.</p>


Recycling ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wilma Strydom

This paper reports on an application of the Theory of Planned Behavior to understand the relationships between the determinants (latent variables) comprising the Theory of Planned Behavior and, based on these findings, to guide decision-making related to household recycling in South Africa. Data from a representative sample of respondents in large urban areas (n = 2004) was analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The results of the SEM analysis showed a good fit of the survey data to the Theory of Planned Behavior theoretical model. The Theory of Planned Behavior explains 26.4% of the variance in recycling behavior and 46.4% of the variance in intention to recycle. Only 3.3% of South Africans in large urban areas show dedicated recycling behavior, considering the recycling of five materials: paper, plastic, glass, metal, and compostable organic waste. The recycling frequency item in the recycling behavior construct is the most likely to be over-reported. South Africans lack sufficient knowledge, positive attitudes, social pressure, and perceived control that would encourage recycling behavior. Awareness drives containing moral values (injunctive norms) and information about available recycling schemes, combined with the provision of a curbside collection service for recyclables, have the greatest chance to positively influence recycling behavior amongst South Africa’s city dwellers.


2020 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mandisa SM Makhathini ◽  
Victor H Mlambo ◽  
Siphesihle Mpanza

Throughout the era of the apartheid, the provision and accessibility of infrastructure in South Africa was skewed, and while the minority had access, the majority was overlooked. Local economic development (LED) has rested on the premise that the availability of infrastructure is likely to spur socio-economic development and to lift millions of South Africans out of poverty. However, with South Africa’s economy struggling to register consistent growth, there are difficulties accessing the much-needed finances needed to invest in infrastructure to spur LED. The study that this paper reflects upon used a qualitative research method and a systematic review of the literature relating to infrastructure provision and local economic development. It utilised thematic content analysis to deduce its findings with the hope of bringing in meaning to the overall content of the paper. The study revealed that indeed infrastructure provision is key to local economic development, that South Africa’s infrastructure provision is still skewed as urban areas continue receiving priority over rural areas; that local economic development is key in reducing inequality and spurring economic growth and sustaining the livelihoods of rural dwellers. However, limited investments in infrastructure in rural areas hinder the realization of such benefits. It recommends that the government prioritise LED in rural areas among other suggestions.


2006 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 239-256 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karl Peltzer ◽  
Supa Pengpid

The aim of this study was to better understand the sexuality of youth in the context of HIV/AIDS in South Africa. Participants (400 male and 400 female 16- and 17- year-olds) 400 were from rural and 400 from urban areas, and almost all were of African descent. Results indicate that two-thirds of the girls and more than half of the boys had had sexual intercourse and had petted. Almost half of the boys (44.3%) and 24% of the girls took less than a week to have sexual intercourse in their current steady relationship. Only 40% of the girls and 57% of the boys had used a condom during their first sexual intercourse; HIV-AIDS prevention efforts should be linked to research on sexuality to advance effectiveness.


2019 ◽  
Vol 241 ◽  
pp. 191-213 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierre van der Eng ◽  
Kitae Sohn

AbstractThis article uses the mean age at menarche of women in China as an indicator of changes in the standard of living during the 20th century. It discusses the difficulties of using this indicator. It finds that the mean age of menarche stagnated at 16 to 17 years for women born during the period between the 1880s and 1930s. The age at menarche decreased in some urban areas, indicating improving living standards in, for example, Beijing and Shanghai. The mean age at menarche increased for 1940s’ birth cohorts, in relation not only to the warfare of the 1940s but also the famine of 1959–1962. The mean age at menarche decreased in a sustained way for women born during the 1950s to early 2000s. The decrease is associated with increasing educational attainment since the 1940s and also improvements in nutrition, hygiene and healthcare.


Twin Research ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 57-64
Author(s):  
Frances M Hain ◽  
Jennifer GR Kromberg

AbstractBirth statistics for the Johannesburg Metropolitan Region were collected for 757 151 confinements from 1969 to 1989 (467 513 Black, 194 375 White, 67 250 Coloured and 28 013 Indian confinements). From 1969 to 1978 data on the sexes of twins were also collected for 375 203 of the confinements (203 504 Black, 129 631 White, 28 253 Coloured and 13 815 Indian confinements). A twin confinement was defined as two deliveries during one confinement. Twinning rates (TRs), defined as the number of twin confinements per 1000 total confinements, were calculated per year for each population group and from 1969–1978 estimates of the relative proportions of dizygotic (DZ) and monozygotic (MZ) twins were calculated and thus the relative DZTRs and MZTRs. A significant decline in Black and Coloured TRs was observed between 1969 and 1989. A significant decline in Black DZTR but not Black MZTR was observed between 1969 and 1978, the Coloured twin sample was too small to show significant trends over this period. It is probable that the overall decline in Black twinning may be explained by a decline in the DZTR. An analysis of birth statistics for 159 748 confinements (134 504 Black and 25 244 White confinements) collected as part of a prospective study of TRs in the Johannesburg Metropolitan Region from 1988 to 1990, indicated that the Black TR continued to decline at least until the end of 1990. TRs in the Johannesburg Metropolitan Region calculated from City Health Department birth statistics collected from 1988 to 1990 were: 13.8 and 10.77 for the Black and White populations, respectively. TRs for this period calculated from the combined birth statistics of 14 hospitals, nursing homes and maternity clinics across the region were: 12.4 and 10.88 for the Black and White populations, respectively.


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