Nearly One in Five South African Children Goes to Bed Hungry

Almost 20% of South African children live in households that suffer from hunger.

This is according to the latest Marginalised Groups Indicator Report, released by Statistics South Africa (Stats SA).

According to the report, 16.4% of children (defined as people aged 17 and younger) lived in households that reported suffering from hunger in 2024.

Households are defined as suffering from hunger if within the last 12 months someone in the household went to bed hungry because of a lack of food sometimes, often, or always.

There were also stark differences by province and race.

Only 2.4% of white children lived in households that suffered from hunger, while 4.6% of Indian children lived in such a household. However, 13.9% of coloured children lived in a household where hunger was an issue, and 17.4% of black children.

Nearly a quarter of children in the Northern Cape lived in households suffering from hunger, with 23.3% of children in that province living in households suffering from hunger. There were three other provinces where there were more than one –in five children living in households that had suffered from hunger – KwaZulu-Natal (22.6%), North West (20.4%), and Mpumalanga (20.4%).

The proportion of children living in households that had suffered from hunger in other provinces was as follows: Western Cape (18.2%), Eastern Cape (17.7%), Free State (15.4%), Gauteng (11.5%), and Limpopo (5.6%).

You were also less likely to live in a household suffering from hunger if you lived in a metro. Only 13.3% of children living in metros lived in households suffering from hunger, compared to 18.0% of those who lived outside the metros.

Childhood hunger can have severe consequences, as long-term hunger can lead to malnutrition, and put children at a severe disadvantage in terms of their physical and mental development.