August is women's month in South Africa, a time to celebrate women who fought and fight for freedom, and all those who have worked for gender emancipation and equality.
The idea of women's month has its origins in Women's Day (9 August), a public holiday which celebrates the 1956 march of 20 000 women on the Union Buildings, to present a petition to Prime Minister JG Strijdom protesting against the extension of the pass laws to African women. The Prime Minister, who had been notified of the women's mission, was not there to receive them. When he failed to appear, the women left bundles of petitions containing more than a hundred thousand signatures at his door.
The women's petition dealt primarily with the effects of pass laws, which brought 'untold suffering to every African family. Raids, arrests, loss of pay, long hours at the pass office, weeks in the cells awaiting trial, forced farm labour - this is what the pass laws have brought to African men. Punishment and misery - not for a crime, but for the lack of a pass'.
Pass laws no longer exist in South Africa's post-apartheid democratic order. However, the women's petition of 1956 included a vision broader than abolition of pass laws. 'We shall not rest', they told Prime Minister Strijdom, until we have won for our children their fundamental rights of freedom, justice, and security'.
Can the women now rest Have the rights of their children, and especially those who are now adult women with their own girl-children, been secured One of the aims of women's month is to analyse and debate that question?
According to Stats SA's 2007 mid-year estimates, South Africa's population is approximately 47,9 million, of whom approximately 24,3 million (51%) are female.
Life expectancy at birth is estimated to be longer for women than for men.
Fertility has declined from an average of 2,89 children per woman in 2001 to 2,69 children by 2007. The implied rate of growth for the South African population has been declining steadily between 2001 and 2007, from approximately 1,3% between 2001 and 2002 to about 1% for 2006 to 2007. The growth rate for females is slightly lower than that of males.
Since 2001, when it was first conducted, the Labour Force Survey (LFS) has consistently recorded a higher unemployment rate among women, compared to men. The most recent data, recorded in the September 2006 LFS, reports an official unemployment rate of 21,2% for men, compared to 30,7% among women.
The General Household Survey (GHS) for 2006 indicates that there are still important gender differences in the percentage of people, age 20 years and older, who have no formal education. A substantial proportion (10,7%) of this group still has no formal qualifications. In 2006, 8,6% men had no formal education. For women, 12,6% had no formal education. This reflects an overall improvement in the situation in 2002, when 9,9% of men age 20 and above had no formal education, compared to 14% women. However, even with this improvement, the gap between men and women has remained largely constant, at approximately 4%.
Teenage pregnancy is an important indicator of the situation of teenage girls, especially in regard to its effects on schooling. In 2002, there were 66 000 teenage girls that reported pregnancy as the main reason for not attending an educational institution. This rose to 86 000 in 2004, but dropping to 71 000 in 2006. In 2002, 11,8% of teenage girls that were not in an educational institution reported pregnancy as the main reason, rising to 17,4% in 2004 and declining to 13,9% in 2006.
Over the period 2002 to 2006, the percentage of children that went hungry was substantially higher in female-headed households than in male-headed households. For example, in 2006 in 3,4% of female-headed households, children went hungry as against 1,6% in male-headed households. However, over the period 2002 to 2006, and reflecting the national average, the percentages of children that went hungry declined, particularly in female-headed households.
Last night, I attended the opening of the 56th session of the International Statistics Institute (ISI) in Lisbon, Portugal. Regular readers of this column will know that South Africa will be hosting the next ISI session, to be held in Durban in 2009. As part of the preparations for that event, Stats SA is developing a focus on statistics about women and the girl-child in Africa. This will be actively promoted at the 57th ISI session.
Stats SA will also be releasing data from two major survey instruments towards the end of the year. The Income and Expenditure Survey (IES) and Community Survey (CS) will present considerable detail recording the nature of progress made, or not made, in the emancipation of women in South African society.
A preliminary review of already-published official data suggests that progress has been made in the emancipation of women since 1956, when 20 000 brave protestors confronted the might of the apartheid state. Most of these advances have taken place within South Africa's new democratic order.
However, the reflections and activities linked to Women's Month this August confirm what the data are telling us: that total eradication of gender inequality, and gender-linked access to opportunity and resources, remains a challenge confronting all levels of society.
Pali Lehohla is South Africa's statistician-general and head of Statistics South Africa. For more information on Stats SA and its statistical outputs, including the Mid-year Population Estimates for 2007, and the 2006 General Household Survey, visit www.statssa.gov.za, or contact user services on (012) 310-8600.