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Ethnic groups in South Africa have a variety of origins. The racial categories introduced by the colonial apartheid regime remain ingrained in South African society[1][2][3][4] with the governing party of South Africa, the African National Congress (ANC) continuing to classify the population as belonging to one of the three colonial-era constructed racial groups: 'Blacks', 'Whites', and 'Coloureds' as well as Indians.[4][3]
The ANC government claims that using these categories is essential in order to identify and track the progress of Historically Disadvantaged Individuals (HDI) which are people who, before democratisation and the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1993 (Act No. 200 of 1993), came into operation, were disadvantaged by unfair discrimination on the basis of race under the former colonial apartheid regime.[5][6]
The National Census of 1996 was the 1st comprehensive national census by the ANC government, after the democratic transition. Statistics South Africa (SSA) provides the limited categories based on the classifications of the previous regime by which people must use to classify themselves, including a fifth category of "unspecified/other".[7]
Category | 1996 | 2001 | 2011 | 2022 | Change |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Black African | 76.7% | 68.4% | 79.2% | 81.4% | 2.2% |
Coloured | 10.9% | 7.7% | 8.9% | 8.2% | 0.72% |
White | 8.9% | 8.3% | 8.9% | 7.3% | 1.6% |
Asian or Indian | 2.6% | 2.2% | 2.5% | 2.7% | 0.2% |
Other | No Data | No Data | 0.5% | 3.0% | 2.5% |
Total population | 40,600,000 | 44,819,778 | 51,770,560 | 6,950,782 | 14.39% |
Others pointed out that the repeal of the Population Registration Act in 1991 removed any legal basis for specifying 'race'. The Identification Act of 1997 makes no mention of race. On the other hand, the Employment Equity Act speaks of 'designated groups' being 'black people, women and people with disabilities'. The Act defines 'black' as referring to 'Africans, coloureds and Indians'. Apartheid and the racial identification which underpinned it explicitly linked race with differential access to resources and power. If the post-apartheid order was committed to remedying this, race would have to be included in surveys and censuses, so that progress in eradicating the consequences of apartheid could be measured and monitored. This was the reasoning that led to a 'self-identifying' question about 'race' or 'population group' in both the 1996 and 2001 population censuses, and in Statistics SA's household survey programme.
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