Spatial aspects of unemployment in South Africa 1991-2007 (UNEMPL): Municipalities - All provinces

Abstract

This is aggregated data of individuals or households. The data originates from the South African censuses of 1991, 1996 and 2001, as well as the community survey of 2007. The geographical units were standardised to the 2005 municipal boundaries so that spatial measuring was consistent. The data therefore covers the whole country at a municipal level for different time periods. The major variables focus on employment status.

The data set consists of 32 variables and 257 cases. It contains the same socio-economic variables for different time periods, namely 1991, 1996, 2001 and 2007.

Combined ranking - municipalities were ranked for each year, i.e. 1991, 1996, 2001 and 2007, in terms of unemployment rate and assigned a rank value. There is also a combined unemployment rank value for all years and all municipalities.

Population density - this was calculated by dividing the total population of a municipality in 1991 by the area and the answer is expressed as number of people per square kilometer.

The linking of different census geographies was done by using areal interpolation to transfer data from one set of boundaries to another. The 2005 municipality boundaries were used as the common denominator and it is part of a spatial hierarchy developed by Statistics SA for the 2001 census.