Census 2022’s 2.4 million foreign-born population figure deeply suspect

The findings from Census 2022 were released this week. It’s a wonderful cornucopia of fascinating factoids but some of the findings are far less believable than others.

Because it’s an area of passionate political contestation, the number of foreign-born migrants is always among the most cited figures in the census. The census headline figure – that there are 2.4 million foreign-born people in the country – is deeply suspect.

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First, it contradicts all three previous censuses, which showed an accelerating trend of migration. That is what one would expect, as our borders became more porous while political, economic and social conditions deteriorated markedly in much of Africa.

Starting from a base figure of 835 000 in 1996, the migrant population increased by 23% in the five years to 2001. In the next 10 years, it more than doubled to 2.2 million. Yet the latest Stats SA figure would have us believe that, post-2011, this acceleration suddenly hit an invisible wall. The rate of increase supposedly dropped to only 9% – some 200 000 people – over the past decade.

Second, the Census 2022 figure contradicts the estimates of not only various reputable international agencies, but those of Stats SA itself.

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A year or two back, ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba used a World Bank 2018 estimate of around 15.3 million of the SA population being undocumented, to demand a crackdown on foreign migrants. Stats SA was quick to point out the World Bank’s estimate was not a measure of foreign-born people within our borders. The 15.3 million included everyone without legal proof of identity, including South Africans.

Stats SA explained to Africa Check at the time that the agency, based on its 2020 midyear population estimate, put the number of “foreign-born” people in the country, both legal and illegal, at around 3.9 million. That was 6.5% of the then 59.6 million population.

In March last year, in another Africa Check article, they reiterated that the foreign-born percentage remained around 6.5% of the population, amounting now to four million migrants. All this combines to make nonsensical the Census 2022 figures.

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It’s simply not credible that the foreign-born component of the population was 2% in 1996, rose to 4.2% in 2011 and again to 6.5% in 2020, but then inexplicably over the next year retreated to 3.5%.

So, how did this happen? Discounting some statistical sleight of hand to aid an ANC government that next year faces its most difficult general election yet, leaves only error as the explanation.

As Stats SA said, this particular census was beset with problems. The Covid pandemic lockdowns delayed implementation to early 2022. Relying on 100 000 fieldworkers to implement the country’s first “digital census”, it delivered a 31% undercount. This meant lots of post hoc adjustments to data that was already possibly dubious.

Unfortunately, it is not only the migration data that looks dodgy. According to Census 2022, an impressive 88.5% of the country’s 17.8 million households are now cosy and warm in their formal housing. As recently as mid-2019, according to StatsSA’s own figures, less than 82% of households were in formal housing.

This means that in under three years, the stock of formal housing grew almost seven percentage points. This is a truly remarkable achievement, if real, given the state looting.

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These are just a few of the anomalies evident from a cursory dive. No doubt a more comprehensive analysis by the opposition parties will throw up other implausible statistics. But perhaps one shouldn’t get too hot under the collar about such obvious absurdities.

As reality weighs in, bad statistics eventually fold in upon themselves like a house of cards. And, at the end of the day, people vote based on their lived experience, not on the upbeat numbers in an election pamphlet.