Evaluating the Age Sex Distributions from South Africa’s 2022 Census Based on the Ten Percent SamplePast Publications
Age and sex are cross-cutting variables in an economy. The quality of the age-sex distributions in a census is a general pointer to the overall quality of the census data. It is therefore important to provide an assessment of the quality of the age-sex distributions from the 2022 South Africa’s census. This study undertook such assessment using primarily, the unweighted 10% sample of the 2022 census that is available in the public domain. The results indicate that overall sex ratio of 91.5 nationally from Census 2022 10% sample is low and odd. The single-year age distributions were reasonably smooth nationally but less smooth provincially. The age-sex distributions nationally were of better quality than observed in some other African countries censuses.
The shape of the five-year population pyramid from the Census 2022 10% sample is, however, inconsistent with the shape of the five-year population pyramid derived from the 2011 census and more importantly, inconsistent with the five-year population pyramid derived from the 2021 General Household Survey undertaken approximately one year before the 2022 census. As in other censuses elsewhere in Africa and other regions, there is evidence of digit preference and age shifting in the five-year age distributions in the 2022 census. The weights in the 2022 10% sample imposed a different age structure on the original age structure in the 10% sample.
Users of the Census 2022 10% sample data therefore need to be sensitive to these issues and especially the weights since age-sex distributions are linked to all aspects of the life cycle and impact planning in all sectors of the economy.
Author: Emeritus Professor Eric O Udjo (PhD, London) 2024
