Revisiting the COVID-19 vulnerability index in South Africa

ABSTRACT

This study uses the Census 2011 and Community Survey 2016 data, adopts the Alkire-Foster multidimensional poverty index (MPI) approach and addresses numerous shortcomings of the original Statistics South Africa method by including numerous indicators from four dimensions (socio-economic, demographic, housing and hygiene, health) to derive a revised COVID-19 vulnerability index. The empirical findings indicate the index was relatively higher for African female individuals living in rural areas of the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo provinces, coming from households headed by elderly aged 55 years or above. Alfred Nzo, Amathole, Harry Gwala, OR Tambo and Umzinyathi are the five district councils that are most vulnerable to COVID-19 (the first four were declared COVID-19 hotspot areas by the South African government in December 2020). The results of the index decomposition found that indicators from the housing and hygiene dimension contributed most to the COVID-19 vulnerability.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19 vulnerability index
• multidimensional poverty
• South Africa

JEL:

• J30
• J32

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 These literatures are not reviewed in detail here, given this study primarily relates to COVID-19 vulnerability.

2 Link to this online dashboard: http://www.statssa.gov.za/?p=13875

3 Detailed mathematical explanation of the SRMI approach falls beyond the scope of this study, but the readers can refer to Raghunathan et al. (2001), Ardington et al. (2006), Lacerda et al. (2008) and Vermaak (2008).

4 At the time of writing, a total of 1 068 websites are zero-rated, as released by Internet Service Providers’ Association (2020). However, these websites are almost all related to education and learning.