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Marriages and Divorces 2010

South Africa, 2010
Reference ID
ZAF_2010_MD_v01_M
Producer(s)
Statistics South Africa
Metadata
DDI/XML JSON
Created on
Apr 25, 2019
Last modified
Apr 25, 2019
Page views
108
  • Study Description
  • Data Description
  • Get Microdata
  • Identification
  • Version
  • Scope
  • Coverage
  • Producers and sponsors
  • Data Collection
  • Access policy
  • Disclaimer and copyrights
  • Metadata production

Identification

Survey ID Number
ZAF_2010_MD_v01_M
Title
Marriages and Divorces 2010
Country
Name Country code
South Africa zaf
Study type
Administrative Records, Other (ad/oth]
Abstract
Marriages data
Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) publishes marriage data on citizens and permanent residents that are collected through the national civil registration systems. The data in this dataset is based only on registered marriages and divorces that are stipulated and governed by the country’s legal frameworks. The management of registered marriages is the responsibility of the Department of Home Affairs (DHA). Two main
legislations cover the registration of civil marriages and customary marriages. Civil marriages are administered through the Marriage Act, 1961 (Act No. 25 of 1961) as amended, and its associated regulations. Customary marriages are governed by the Recognition of Customary Marriages Act, 1998 (Act No. 120 of 1998) that came into effect on 15 November 2000. An additional legislation is the registration of civil unions - relationships between same-sex couples that are legally recognized by a state authority. These unions are covered by the Civil Union Act, 2006 (Act No. 17 of 2006) that came into operation on 30 November 2006. After the solemnisation ceremony of a marriage or a civil union, the marriage officer submits the marriage /civil union register to the nearest office of the DHA, where the marriage / civil union details are recorded in the National Population Register (NPR). With respect to customary marriages, the two spouses and their witnesses present themselves at a DHA office in order to register a customary marriage. Hence the province of registration is not necessarily the province of the place of usual residence of the couple since the registration of the marriage can take place in any DHA office. Statistics South Africa obtains data on marriages and civil unions in digital format from DHA through the State Information Technology Agency (SITA) and the Marriages and Divorces 2010 dataset is compiled from this data.

Divorces data
The dissolution of registered marriages and civil unions falls under the jurisdiction of the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development (DoJ&CD). This responsibility of the department is mandated through the Divorce Act, 1979 as amended, and its associated regulations (Act No.70 of 1979) and the Jurisdiction of Regional Courts Amendment Act, 2008 (Act No. 31 of 2008) as amended which came into effect on 9 August 2010.

The divorces data file only provides 2010 data on divorces from civil marriages. It is limited in its usability by this and by the fact that the data is on divorces that were granted in 2010 by the
Department of Justice and Constitutional Development at 12 of the 62 divorce courts mandated to deal with divorce cases in South Africa. The lack of geographical data in the dataset also compromises its usability.
Kind of Data
Administrative records data [adm]
Unit of Analysis
The units of anaylsis for the Marriages and Divorces 2010 are individuals.

Version

Version Description
v1: Edited, anonymised dataset for licensed distribution
Version Date
2012-07-31
Version Notes
This version (version 1) of the Marriages and Divorces 2010 dataset was obtained from Statistics South Africa on the 19th of June 2012

The divorces data file only provides data on divorces from civil marriages. It is limited in its usability by this and by the fact that the data is on divorces that were granted in 2010 by the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development at 12 of the 62 divorce courts mandated to deal with divorce cases in South Africa. The lack of geographical data in the dataset further compromises its usability.

Scope

Notes
The scope of the data is marriage and divorces of citizens and permanent residents of South Africa
Topics
Topic Vocabulary URI
family life and marriage [12.5] CESSDA http://www.nesstar.org/rdf/common

Coverage

Geographic Coverage
The Marriages and Divorces 2010 has national coverage.
Geographic Unit
Geography is problematic in this dataset as not all the data files have geographic data. The Civil Marriages and Civil Unions data files include a Province of Registration variable but the Customary Marriages data file does not. There is also no geographical data in the Divorces file. As this data file includes divorce data from only a subset of divorce courts, this lack of geographical information compromises its usability.

Producers and sponsors

Primary investigators
Name
Statistics South Africa

Data Collection

Dates of Data Collection
Start End
2010-01-01 2010-12-31
Data Collection Mode
Other [oth]

Access policy

Access authority
Name Affiliation Email URL
DataFirst University of Cape Town info@data1st.org http://www.datafirst.uct.ac.za
Contacts
Name Affiliation Email URL
Manager, DataFirst University of Cape Town info@data1st.org http://www.datafirst.uct.ac.za
Access conditions
The MD 2010 dataset is a licensed dataset, accessible under conditions.
Citation requirements
Publications based on datasets distributed by DataFirst should acknowledge relevant sources by means of bibliographic citations. To ensure that such source attributions are captured for social science bibliographic utilities, citations must appear in footnotes or in the reference section of publications. The bibliographic citation for this dataset is:

Statistics South Africa. 2012. Marriages and Divorces 2010 [dataset]. Version 1. Pretoria: Statistics South Africa [producer], 2012. Cape Town: DataFirst [distributor], 2012.

Disclaimer and copyrights

Disclaimer
The information products and services of Statistics South Africa are protected in terms of the Copyright Act, 1978 (Act 98 of 1978). As the State President is the holder of State copyright, all organs of State enjoy unhindered use of the Department's information products and services, without a need for further permission to copy in terms of that copyright. Where a copy of the information is made available to any third party outside the State, the third party must be made aware of the existence of State copyright and ownership of the information by the State. The State (through Statistics SA) retains the full ownership of its information, products and services at all times; access to information does not give ownership of the information to the client.

The use of any data is subject to acknowledgement of Stats SA as the supplier and owner of copyright. Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) will not be liable for any damages or losses, except to the extent that such losses or damages are attributable to a breach by Stats SA of its obligations in terms of an existing agreement or to the negligence or wilful act or omissions of the Stats SA, its servants or agents, arising out of the supply of data and or digital products in terms of that agreement. The user indemnifies Stats SA against any claims of whatsoever nature (including legal costs) by third parties arising from the reformatting, restructuring, reprocessing and/or addition of the data, by the user.
Copyright
Copyright 2012, Statistics South Africa

Metadata production

DDI Document ID
DDI_ZAF_2010_MD_v01_M
Producers
Name Affiliation Role
DataFirst University of Cape Town DDI Producer
Date of Metadata Production
2012-07-31
DDI Document version
Version 1.1
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