This is a paid article which your subscription is allowing you to read.

The Common Sense  has been investing more time and resources into deep-dive analysis of the key driving forces shaping South African society and its economy. One of those is family structures.

These were wrecked under apartheid and have never been repaired. But family structures are also one of the most important institutions to transfer values across generations.  A very good argument could be made,  therefore,  that many of South Africa’s social ills can be tracked back to its broken families. In trying to understand that better, The Common Sense  looked at how South Africa raises its children by examining family structure, household employment, grant dependence, household nutrition, reading outcomes, and mathematics outcomes.

The following nine charts set out some of the key data. 

The chart below shows that less than a third of South Africa’s children grow up with both their parents present in the household, and almost 20.0% live with neither parent.

The second chart shows provincial data for children who live in a household with both of their parents.

The national share was 31.4%. The Western Cape recorded the highest figure, at 53.9%, followed by Gauteng at 43.6%. KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape recorded the lowest figures, at 19.0% and 17.2%, respectively.  Much research suggests that children who grow up with both their parents do much better in life than those who grow up under different circumstances. The presence of a father is particularly important, with problems from juvenile delinquency to drug abuse and teenage pregnancy showing a high degree of correlation with whether a strong father figure was present in the life of a child.

The third chart shows the share of children living in households where no adult was employed in 2024.

Nationally, 30.7% of children lived in workless households. This means that in a third of households, children never see someone go to work or return from work every day. They are socialised in an environment where the act of work and earning an income plays no role in their formative years. The Eastern Cape recorded the highest share, at 48.5%, followed by Limpopo at 41.0% of households in which children never see an adult leave to go to work or return from work. Gauteng and the Western Cape recorded the lowest shares, at 18.2% and 12.1%, respectively.

The fourth chart shows the main source of household income in 2025.

Just over half of households (54.3%) relied mainly on salaries and wages. Social grants came second, at 23.4%, more than remittances, pensions, and all other sources combined. For nearly a quarter of South African households, the primary earner is the state.

The fifth chart shows the share of households in each province that relied mainly on social grants.

The Eastern Cape recorded the highest figure, at 39.4%, followed by the Northern Cape at 34.8% and Limpopo at 32.5%. Gauteng and the Western Cape recorded the lowest figures, at 13.4% and 13.9%, respectively. A great many children are therefore being socialised in an environment where income is something that is provided by the state.

The sixth chart shows the proportion of children living in households where hunger was reported in 2023.

Nationally, 16.8% of children lived in households where hunger was reported. KwaZulu-Natal recorded the highest rate, at 28.3%, followed closely by the Northern Cape at 28.2%, and North West at 23.4%. Limpopo recorded the lowest rate, at 5.8%. Hunger leads directly to physical and mental stunting in children.

The seventh chart compares provincial Grade 4 reading scores. These are drawn from the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), a major international comparative study of the reading ability of Grade 4 pupils. PIRLS scores are based on a scale, with 500 representing the average of all countries that participated. The chart shows that no South African province came anywhere near that number.

The data are from 2021 because that is the latest available study. The next batch of data will be published in 2027.

The eighth chart tracks a child through their school career. It starts with the number of children who enrolled in Grade 1 in 2014 and follows them through the subsequent 12 years, culminating in the number who passed mathematics in matric with a grade of 50.0% or higher.

What the data show is that over a million children enrolled in Grade 1 in 2014. Yet only 746 110 pupils wrote matric 12 years later. Of that number, just 254 415 wrote mathematics. And of that group, just 63 813 passed mathematics with a grade of 50.0% or higher. That was just over 5.0% of the original 2014 cohort. Yet a pass of 50.0% in mathematics in high school is a pretty good predictor of whether a person will have a middle-class future.

The ninth and final chart shows the share of matric mathematics candidates in each province who achieved 50.0% or more.

The Western Cape may have recorded the highest proportion, but even in that province, the figure is still well below 50.0%.

Seen in its totality, the data in this report make clear that without an intentional focus on restoring the South African family, it will be very difficult to get a hold on many of the country's broader social and economic problems. Given that the wrecking of family structures was one of the key consequences of apartheid, it might be thought that this would long have been one of the priorities for the government. Yet it features barely at all, whether in policy documents or in the campaign platforms of any political party.