The 2019 White Paper on Science, Technology and Innovation (DST, 2019) states:
Interdisciplinary research teams, and the integration of knowledge from different disciplines, as well as from users, are necessary to deal with complex problems. Increasingly scholars and policy makers are viewing such approaches as “science for the future”, and as an opportunity to strengthen the relationship between science and society by putting social concerns at the core of scientific research. Open science is one avenue to realise the benefits of collaborative, transdisciplinary approaches to knowledge development.
SAPRIN’s intervention in Gauteng – by commissioning GRT-INSPIRED – is a key moment to try and realise some of these goals. So too the ‘Vision’ of the White Paper which talks to improving coherence and coordination; increased partnering between business, academia, government and civil society; increased human capabilities; and the promotion of transformation and inclusivity. The Roadmap (2016: 35) goes on to argue for HDSS sites to collect data on all vital events but also “residence status and migration, household dynamics, socio-economic status, disease monitoring, labour and employment status, education status and social protection”. This talks very directly to our approach – locating vital statistics in the urban and socio-economic complexity from which they emerge.
This ambitious goal is the basis for our selection of three sites, rather than one, to cover a range of urban forms in which the poor live. Gauteng is a magnet for in-country and international migrants, both high and low-skilled. StatsSA predict net international migration to South Africa (2016-2021) of over a million people, 48% of whom will come to Gauteng. (By contrast, 12% were heading for the Western Cape.) Internal migration adds to the Gauteng population growth rate. GRT-INSPIRED will allow all stakeholders to more accurately measure internal and cross-border migrancy, as well as length of stay, use of peri-urban areas as ‘springboards’ into city centres, and so on. The difference between migration to Melusi and Hillbrow is stark – Hillbrow is attracting better educated, better paid, and employed migrants (internal and cross-border). After completing baseline, this was borne out by our data: Hillbrow (at the northern end) residents have the highest rates of completed education, highest employment, lowest uptake of social grants, and so on – in stark contrast with both Atteridgeville and Melusi.
Migration coupled with the legacy of the past has demographic effects that make Gauteng look different to anywhere else in South Africa – it has more men than women, and almost 30% of all youth in the country live in Gauteng (5,10 million or 28,6%). Fewer older people live in Gauteng than in other provinces. This suggests that the health and demographic profile of Gauteng will differ from other, less urbanised provinces.
The province has an estimated 1 million single person households, many of them long-term migrants and informal dwellers maximising benefits and remitting home; poorer suburbs are increasingly densifying and informalizing (shacks, caravans and tents in backyards are common) as people seek to move closer to their place of work or school (thus using informality to undo apartheid spatial engineering), and so on. Again, our data from baseline found that four in ten households in GRT-INSPIRED are single-person households.
It is heartening to see that even early data (from baseline) reflects and confirms key aspects of the Gauteng demographic profile, which set it apart from the rest of South Africa.
