Research ReportA Social Survey of Dzivaresekwa Township,SalisburyThe purpose of this survey was to discover thesocial composition of an African township, asthere have been no such investigations of Salis-bury townships. The data obtained were alsointended to provide a demographic basis for ahealth study among Africans, which has now beencompleted. Dzivaresekwa was considered to bethe most suitable for this purpose because itenjoys the presence of a clinic run by the MedicalSchool of the University of Rhodesia. The field-work for the study took place between November1966 and July 1967, and it is hoped that the datawill be useful for future comparative studies.Dzivaresekwa township is situated to the southof the city of Salisbury, about eleven miles fromthe city centre. The 940 acres (370 ha) of landon which the township has been built was boughtby government for the purpose of providingaccommodation for African urban workers. Ac-commodation in the township is broadly of threekinds:1. Most of the accommodation is under thedirect supervision of the township, and con-sists of:(a) Full Units. There were 20 families livingin houses occupied by one family each.The rent varies between $5,00 and S9,20(families subsidized by government pay15,00; the economic rent is $9,20).(b) Half-Units. Here two families share thesame house which has been sub-dividedinto A and B. Rent for the subsidizedfamilies is $3 and the economic rent is$4,60. The total number of houses was169.(c) Single Units. There were 22 houses forunmarried persons.2. An Aided Self-Help Scheme provides housingof a relatively high standard in this area; atthe time of this survey there were 28 suchhouses. The mortgage payments per monthare S6,57, and the total cost of each house isin the region of $660.3. A Squatter Section (known as Side Residents)provides for the poorest section of the com-munity. Its residents are allowed to constructtheir dwellings with poles and dagga walls.$2,00 is charged per month for the plot. Therewere 100 dwellings in this section.The first buildings were constructed in 1961and a government primary school was opened in1962. The total enrolment at the beginning of1967 was 570 pupils. There were sixteen teachersand a headmaster. The medical school of theUniversity of Rhodesia runs a small clinic whichduring the time of this survey was open one even-ing per week. The nearest hospital is at Harare,about 10 miles away.Clubs in the township include a women's club,where women are taught such things as sewing,hygiene and cookery. A football club has beenformed. At week-ends boxing fans usually organ-ize tournaments, and concerts and cinema showsare sometimes held. The important centre ofsocial life is the beerhall which has recently beenenlarged. There are two general dealers' shopsand a butchery.67PROCEDURESampling was by random digits using Snedcortables of random numbers (Mueller and Schues-sler, 1961, p. 422). AH the houses in all threesections of the township were numbered serially,and then from the corresponding table of randomdigits as many different numbers (combination ofdigits) were drawn as there were cases to be in-cluded in the sample. The cases whose serialnumbers corresponded to those drawn from thetable constituted the sample.Thus all figures quoted are given in terms ofthe sample which was a little over 10 per cent ofthe houses in the township. The total number ofhouses was 339 and 60 are included in thissample. Four household heads refused to beinterviewed.RESULTSAge and Sex StructureTable I shows the age and sex structure of thede facto population. Females outnumber malesin the age range of 0 - 29. This preponderance offemales over males is greatest in the age range of15-29. This is mainly due to the fact that boyswho are no longer in school tend to leave homeand get jobs and accommodation elsewhere inSalisbury. In comparison with other SalisburyAfrican townships Dzivaresekwa has two maindisadvantages from the point of view of workseekers. Firstly, transport between the townshipand the Salisbury city centre is poor and relativelyexpensive. Most buses travel between the town-ship and the nearby European suburbs of Mabel-Age in Years0-45-910-1415-1920-2425-2930-3435-3940-4445-4950-5455-5960 and overTOTALAGE-SFI(N)4024207115141685310154Table IIX STRUCTURFMales%12.27,46.12,10,34,74,34,92,41,50,90,30,047,1/ 'ci(N)49282613101810972000172nates%15.08,77,93,93,15.63,12,82,10,60,00,00,052.8reign, Meyrick Park and Marlborough. Whenemployment is found in these suburbs wages arerelatively low, so that most men try to find morelucrative work elsewhere. Secondly, those who getemployment in Salisbury city and the adjoiningindustrial areas find it difficult to obtain accom-modation in Dzivaresekwa township because of itshistory. Dzivaresekwa was established mainly forthe purpose of accommodating African domesticsand labourers working in the surbnrbs of TvleyrickPark, Mabelreign and Marlborough. Thus youngmen of Dzivaresekwa tend to look for work andaccommodation in other parts of Salisbury, leav-ing their female relatives of the same age rangebehind.Table II00 Females)19670-1415-2930-4445 and over56146450Effective sample = 326Another reason which accounts for the highratio of females to males in the 15-29 age cate-gory is the tendency for men to marry womenyounger than themselves.There is a large proportion of young childrenunder ten years of age. This is partly due to thefact that Dzivaresekwa is a township of com-paratively young men and women in their earlystage of marriage. There are no women over theage of fifty in the studied population, and menover this age constitute 1,2 per cent of the malesin the sample population. In the sample 76,8 percent of the people are below the age of thirty.Hot/sehold CompositionThe average household is made up of 5,4 per-sons (Table III). A household was defined as allthose people living within a certain housing unitand eating together. The majority of the house-holds consist of an elementary family (Table IV).This type accounts for 76 per cent of all thehouseholds. A large number of men working asdomestics or labourers in European suburbs liveat their employer's residence and visit the familyat week-ends. For the purpose of this study suchmen have been recorded as present in the town-ship. Twenty per cent of the households consistof extended families which are those households* r-i*Ł »Table 111HOUSEHOLD COMPOSITIONAge in years0-45-910-14AdultsTOTALPER HOUSEHOLDM40221566143ChildrenF49252166161Co-residentsMŠ25411F35311M402420701542,6TotalsF492826691722,9Totals8952461393265,4which contain persons who are not members ofthe nuclear family. These are school childrenstaying with relatives while attending school inDzivaresekwa and adult relatives. The remaininghouseholds, 3,9 per cent of the total, consist offragmentary elementary families, in which oneparent is absent; the absent parents are mostlywomen living in the rural areas.Table IVHOUSEHOLD TYPEHousehold TypeElementary FamilyFragmentaryElementary FamilyExtended FamilyAge in years(N)4261260%76,03,920,099,9The high percentage of households consistingof an elementary family is due to a number offactors. Firstly, houses in the townships arerelatively small, the majority consisting of onlytwo rooms. It has therefore been made illegal bytownship authorities for a householder to accom-modate persons other than members of his familywithout permission of the town manager.The percentage of extended and fragmentaryfamilies seems to be open to seasonal variation.During the ploughing, weeding and harvestingseason the influx of rural relatives into town issmall. Similarly a large number of children islikely to be away in the rural areas during schoolholidays. Other factors which are likely to affectfamily structure include income, education, placeof origin and the degree of commitment to urbanlife of the householders.A number of children of women in the town-ship were away from home (Table V). The maj-ority of the absent children are in the rural areas.Out of the 64 children who were living elsewhereduring the time of the survey, 43 were in the ruralareas, 17 in towns, and 4 were at boarding schools(Table VI). Rural upbringing is considered bymany parents to be better and safer for children.Some parents send children away because theycannot afford to support them in town; others aresent away because there is not sufficient roomfor them in the house. In the sixty householdssurveyed there were 22 children who are not thoseof the women in the sample. All of them wererelatives of either the household head or his wife.The majority of these children had come toDzivaresekwa in order to attend school.Table VAGE AND SEX GROUPS OF ABSENT CHILDRENAge0-45-910-1415 years or moreTOTALSMales6532135Table V,PLACE OF RESIDENCE OFPresent ResideneeIn rural areasIn townsAt boarding schoolsTOTALSMales1913335Females3871129Totals913103264fABSENT CHILDRENFemales244129Total4317464Origins of PopulationTable VII shows the country of birth of theparents in the sample. Sixty-five per cent ofthem were born in Rhodesia; 13,3 per cent, inMalawi; 12,5 per cent, in Zambia; and 9,2 percent were born in Mozambique. With this influxof a variety of peoples some mixing of the tribalgroups is inevitable and this is reflected in theinter-tribal marriages in the township:69MarriageRhodesianRhodesianRhodesianAliensbetweenmen and womenmen and alien women ....women and alien men ...Table VIINum-ber.. 297., 131160%48,311,721,618,399,9ORIGINS OF POPULATIONS(Parents only)Place of BirthRhodesiaMalawiZambiaMozambiqueTOTALSMales36117660Females4258560(N)78161511120Totals%65,013,312,59 2100,0The majority of these urban dwellers have notcome to Dzivaresekwa directly from their homedistricts. They have come from other urban areasparticularly Mabelreign and Meyrick Park inSalisbury. Of the parents in the sample, 63,3 per-cent have been in towns for more than ten years,and only 3,3 per cent have not yet completed ayear's stay (Table VIII),Table VIIILENGTH OF RESIDENCE IN THE URBAN AREAS(Heads of Households)Years0-56-10Over 10 yearsTOTALNumber1153860%11,625,063,399,9Of the household heads 73,3 per cent do nothave land in the rural areas. The majority of thosewho do have land in the rural areas areRhodesians. Only two aliens have land in theirhome countries and both are from Malawi. Thosewho have land in the rural areas generally sendtheir wives to the rural home at certain times ofthe year to cultivate and harvest the crops. Somehave relatives who look after their lands; only inone case was the land not being cultivated.Education, Occupations and EarningsAbout sixty-six per cent of the people in thesample have received some education but only afew have attained relatively high standards. Abreakdown of the sample population into agegroups, however, shows that illiteracy is decreas-ing (Table IX).The level of education reached by the Dzivare-sekwa population is probably lower than thatreached by other African communities aroundSalisbury, but until the other townships have beensurveyed, it is difficult to be sure. Certainly it islower than that of two villages in the ChinamoraTribal Trust Land about 25 miles from Salisburywhich were surveyed at the same time asDzivaresekwa; the two villages had 110 house-holds and 576 people living in them, and 69 percent of the population had received some educa-tion. The relatively low standard of educationattained by the Dzivaresekwa population is con-nected with the history of the township. Asmentioned earlier the township was built mainlyfor the purpose of providing accommodation fordomestic servants and labourers. Thus 83,3 percent of the household heads in the sample aredomestics and labourers (Table XI).Another reason which may account for therelatively low level of education in Dzivarasekwais connected with the origins of the population.Table X breaks down the levels of educationaccording to country of origin of the parents inthe sample: 29,3 per cent of the parents fromRhodesia were illiterate compared to 55 per centfrom Malawi; 64,3 per cent from Zambia and72,7 per cent from Mozambique. It is interestingto note that the general level of education attainedby Rhodesian parents in Dzivaresekwa compareswell with that of the two villages mentionedabove, but that it is the parents from othercountries who have attained relatively low levelsof education.OccupationThe breakdown of occupations (Table XI) isbased on the categories of McCulloch (1956).Domestics include cooks, house and gardenservants and waiters. In the labour category areincluded all persons working at all kinds of taskswhich require no special knowledge other thanthat which can be picked up in a few days on thejob such as office cleaners, messengers, and officeboys. Skilled workers include drivers, bricklayersand carpenters. White-collar workers includeclerks and welfare assistants.70NilSub ASub BStd. 1Std. 2Std. 3Std. 4Std. 5Std. 6Total EducatedTotal PopulationPer cent Educated5-917188620100355267,310-1520577111220444695,7TableEDUCATION BY16-20610101254142070,0IXAGE21-30504535967394488,6GROUPS31-402001546643294959,241-50170021110052222,7+ 51400000000040,0Total711918261724311714166237*65,8children were below the age of 5Table XORIGINS OF POPULATION AND LEVEL OF EDUCATION(Parents only)Country of OriginRhodesiaMalawiZambiaMozambiqueTOTALM1065526IlliterateF1254324% of Total29,355,064,372,7M2363234PrimaryF3032136School% of Total70,745,035,727,3M33128760TotalF4286460Table XIOCCUPATION AND EDUCATION(Heads of Households)EducationIlliterateSub A or Sub BStd 1 or Std 2Std 3Std 4Std 5Std 6 and aboveTOTALPER CENTDomestic141031102033,3Labourer60865323050,0Skilled1001121610,0White-Collm,Š00000446,6Total AllOccupations2118107676099,971The largest number (50 per cent) of peopleare labourers; 33,3 per cent are domestics; 10per cent are skilled workers; and 6,6 per centhave white-collar jobs. All the white-collar work-ers in the sample had Standard Six (Grade 5)certificates. Among the domestics and labourers,40 per cent were illiterate. On the other hand twolabourers had Standard Six certificates. Theskilled workers had a level of education lowerthan that of white-collar workers.EarningsIn collecting data on earnings, the desiredreturn was the basic weekly cash wages andrations. A large number of employees, however,are given housing allowances, and domestics,labourers and some skilled workers get rationallowances in cash or kind. There were conse-quently some difficulties, and some men did notknow how much of their wage was the basicTable XIIOCCUPATION AND BASIC MONTHLY EARNINGS(Heads of Households)OccupationEarning $DomesticNLabourerN %SkilledN %While-CollarN %Under 1010-20214041-6009 -»AO182ŠŠ90,010,018966,633,383,316,625,050.025,020 100,027*99,999,9100,0Table XIIIRELIGION(Parents only)ReligionRoman CatholicAfrican DutchReformedMethodistTraditionalSalvation ArmyAnglicanApostolic FaithAssembly of GodWatchtowerOtherTOTALMales Females15767553336601588365333660N30151410111066612120Total%25,012.511,78,39.28,35,05,05,010,0100,0wage. Thus the figures in Table XII give thegross monthly income. The majority of domesticsand labourers receive between eleven and twentydollars per month; skilled workers largely receivebetween twenty-one and forty dollars; and themajority of white collar workers get betweenforty-one and sixty dollars per month.This survey was carried out when Dzivaresekwawas still a relatively small township. The govern-ment announced at the time of the survey itsplans to build several hundred more houses in thetownship. Work is already in progress. It will beinteresting in future years to see what effects thiswill have on the social structure of Dzivaresekwa.ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSThe survey was made possible by a grant from the Research Board of the University of Rho-desia. The assistance of Messrs. M. B. Lukhero and G. M. Mudzingwa of the Department ofSociology in carrying out all the interviewing is gratefully recorded.REFERENCESMcCULLOCH, M. 1956 A Social Survey of the African Population of Livingstone. Manchester, Manchester UniversityPress for Rhodes-Livingstone Institute, Paper No. 26.MUELLER, J. H. and SCHUESSLER, K. F. 1961 Statistical Reasoning in Sociology. Boston, Houghton Mifflin.University of Rhodesia. G. L. CHAVUNDUKA72