JUST WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?

THE TIMES NEWSPAPER
JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA
By S’Thembiso Msomi
Mar 11, 2009

"Treat surveys with scepticism, particularly during elections"

SEVEN out of 10 South African women consider themselves financially independent. That is according to a survey by a “leading global market intelligence” company, Synovate.

According to a statement issued by the company last week, South Africa is ahead of a number of developed countries surveyed. Only France and Britain are said to have performed better.

Bravo to the struggle for women’s emancipation in South Africa?

Not if you consider other statistics that were not included in this survey.

Synovate says the women surveyed in 12 countries described financial independence as “not being dependent on my husband or partner for money”, living debt free and “being able to afford the things I want without worrying about the cost”.

In a country where almost 53 percent of the population is female and 41 percent of the population lives on less than R367 a month, can we really believe Synovate’s survey?

Mind you, as of March last year, according to the Social Security Agency, more than 12.4million people depended on social grants. Most of them were women.

How financially independent is that?

Obviously, serious strides have been made over the last decade and a half to uplift women in South Africa. Women make up about 40 percent of the cabinet and, according to government figures, 30 percent of senior civil servants are female.

The figures are not as impressive when one looks at the private sector.

That is why South Africa was ranked only 22nd — below the likes of Mozambique and Lesotho — in last year’s Global Gender Gap report, which measured the size of the gender disparity in 130 countries.

But if we are to believe the Synovate survey, not only has South Africa made miraculous progress in empowering women but we have been able to reduce our high levels of poverty!

It is election time, a period in which we are inundated with surveys and opinion polls predicting voting patterns.

Already we have had a number of them — some contradicting one another.

Remember how, towards the end of last year, pollsters were telling us that the ruling ANC was losing support so fast that it was likely to be ousted in as many as four provinces?

Recent surveys suggest that the party will lose only one — Western Cape.

We were also told last year that the newly formed Congress of the People would win as much as 20 percent of the vote, making it the second-largest party in the country and possibly reducing the ANC’s majority in Parliament to just over 50 percent — if not less.

Today, we are told that Cope will be extremely lucky to secure 8percent of the vote on April 22.

Ahead of the 2004 elections, most pollsters suggested that the ANC was going to lose votes. But the party’s majority in the National Assembly increased to more than 66 percent.

ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema has his own theory about why pollsters get it wrong.

“It is because Markinor goes to areas that are accessible … Ask them if they know a village called Dzingidzingi [near Giyani, in Limpopo] and whether they conducted a survey there. They don’t know it.

“Instead, they will go and do their survey at the Nelson Mandela Square [in Sandton],” he said.

Those involved in the surveys business say such criticism is unfair and that, though they might not know where Dzingidzingi is, they try to be as inclusive as possible when conducting surveys.

What could help restore the public’s confidence in these surveys is if, whenever they are reported, the proper context of who was polled and where, and what questions were asked, was given.

For instance, Synovate’s survey would have been more credible if we were told the social and economic status of the women interviewed.

The survey was probably conducted among middle-class and professional women — most of whom work and live in some of the country’s richest suburbs.