An estimated 40% of South Africa’s 18 million children are being raised by single mothers as the nature of the country’s traditional family changes. Seven million children are growing up with single mothers, outnumbering the 6.8 million — about 23% of the country’s children — who live with both parents. Indian children are most fortunate, with 82% living with both parents. White children follow closely at 80%, but 52% of coloured kids and almost seven out of 10 Africans grow up without a father figure in the house. These findings are reported in the South African Institute of Race Relations’ latest Fast Facts survey on SA families. Another stand out feature in the survey shows how the number of double orphans had doubled from 352 000 to 701 000, the high number attributed mainly to HIV/Aids. With South Africa ranked fourth in terms of orphan numbers in Africa, the survey expects the number of orphans to skyrocket to 5.7 million by 2015.
Aggregation of real-time updates on relationship and marriage news, research, and global trends compiled by
Marc Payan
