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South Africa's white population is projected to shrink dramatically over the next four decades as low fertility, an ageing population, and continued emigration steadily reduce its share of the country’s make-up.

Statistics South Africa's latest population estimates make it possible to project the country's population forward using its current age structure, fertility rates, mortality rates, and migration trends. The Common Sense used these data to chart how South Africa's population is likely to change through to 2066.

White South Africans are projected to fall from roughly 7.0% of the population today to about 2.0% by 2066. Over the same period, the black-African share rises from about 82.0% to 88.0%, while the coloured and Indian shares remain broadly stable.

The population pyramids below compare South Africa's population in 2025 with its projected population in 2066. In each pyramid, the youngest age groups are at the bottom and the oldest at the top, males are on the left, females are on the right. Comparing the 2025 and 2066 pyramids shows how each population is expected to grow, shrink, and age over the next four decades.

The white population shows the clearest change. It is already looking older and top-heavy, with fewer children at the base than adults and pensioners above them. By 2066, the base has narrowed to near insignificance, with older age groups fanning out into an umbrella shape above them.

The reasons are straightforward. Fertility, at about 1.5 children per woman, remains well below the replacement rate of 2.1, meaning each generation is smaller than the last. Emigration reinforces the decline, removing proportionately younger and skilled adults who also take with them the children they would otherwise have had in South Africa.

The black-African population shows a very different structure. It begins with a broad base and a large concentration of young and working-age South Africans. Four decades later, it is substantially larger and older and has expanded across every age and gender bracket.

The reasons are equally clear. Fertility stands at around 2.3 children per woman, while inward migration adds a substantial number of people a year. Births, age structure, and migration all reinforce continued growth, lifting its share of the national population from about 82.0% to 88.0%.

The coloured and Indian populations sit between these two extremes. The coloured population remains relatively young and broadly stable as a share of the country, while the Indian population ages more rapidly and declines slightly as a proportion of the whole.

These demographic changes have implications far beyond population statistics.

South Africa's broader empowerment framework is built around demographic representivity. Under South African law, black Africans, coloureds, and Indians are grouped together as black for the purposes of empowerment policy. Today, that legal benchmark is roughly 93.0% black and 7.0% white. Based on these projections, it shifts to around 98.0% black and 2.0% white by 2066.

As the workforce becomes increasingly concentrated within one overwhelming majority, empowerment targets would in theory move in the same direction. Should that approach to empowerment be maintained through the next two generations, South Africa’s demographic future will eventually force increasingly extreme manifestations of empowerment policy.

If, however, the objective is to help the disadvantaged, then race will become an increasingly poor guide as even the middle and upper classes become concentrated in one broader race group. The logical response would be to craft empowerment policy to target poverty, income, education, and geography directly. Yet for the foreseeable future the government sentiment is to cling to its old racial categorisations, even as demographic projections make clear that their ultimate utility for achieving a more equitable society will become ever more limited.