Profiling indices geographically: A platform for targeted action

Geographical dimensions of poverty can inform public policy and allocations of resources. In practice, these measures have only been used at aggregated levels where the geographical unit covers a large area. For example, Census 1996 data and Household survey data were combined to construct a series of poverty maps for South Africa. Survey and Census data were linked, and statistical modeling applied to get a predicted expenditure value for each household. The poverty and inequality statistics were mapped by magisterial district, to produce a map like this one, for KwaZulu-Natal to determine poverty ‘hotspots’. The household poverty line was based on consumption expenditure at R800 per month using 1996 prices. The results show higher rates of poverty depending on whether the household is in rural or urban area e.g. major urban centres: Newcastle, Pietermaritzburg, Durban are perceived to be the least poor.

Poor living conditions were characteristic of a large number of the over 800 000 households in eThekwini. The number of households have increased by over 100 000 since 1996. Regarding type of dwelling: in eThekwini, about one in every 6 (18%) of households were living in informal dwellings, and 7% were living in traditional dwellings. This makes, a total of 25% of households living in informal or traditional dwellings, a substantial change from 1996 over a third of households were living in informal or traditional dwellings. A large proportion of African households tended to live in traditional and informal dwellings. As can be seen on the map, the areas marked in red show predominant dwelling type informal, and light green traditional.

In terms of household size, in 2001, 80% of households in eThekwini consisted of between 1 and 5 persons, 17% had between 6 and 10 persons per household. The map shows average household size of the total population per municipality. The areas in dark red show the household sizes of over 6 persons. Just over 3% of households were sharing a single room. 42% of households in eThekwini were living in houses with 3 or fewer rooms – with 18% of households living in just one room. This figure has not changed considerably since 1996, where 17% of households were living in one room, and 51% were living in houses with 3 or fewer rooms.