Total population of South Africa 2022, by age group

As of 2022, South Africa's population increased, counting approximately 60.6 million inhabitants. Of these, roughly 22.12 million were aged 0-19, while 609,000 people were 80 years or older.

Gauteng and Cape Town are the most populated

Although South Africa’s yearly population growth has been dropping since 2013, the growth rate still stood above the world average in 2021. That year, the global population increase reached 0.94 percent, while for South Africa, the rise was 1.23 percent. The majority of the people lived in the borders of Gauteng, the smallest of the nine provinces in land area. The number of people residing there amounted to 15.9 million in 2021. Although Western Cape was the third-largest province, one of it cities, Cape Town, had the highest number of inhabitants in the country, at 3.4 million.

An underemployed younger population

South Africa has a large population under 14, who will be looking for job opportunities in the future. However, the country's labor market has had difficulty integrating these youngsters. Specifically, as of the third quarter of 2022, the unemployment rate reached close to 60 percent and 42.9 percent among people aged 15-24 and 25-34 years, respectively. In the same period, some 25 percent of the individuals between 15 and 24 years were economically active, while the labor force participation rate was higher among people aged 25 to 34, at 71.2 percent.