Johannesburg - Inflation over the past year increased "more rapidly" compared to the previous five years, according to a survey released on Friday.
A total of 61.5% of respondents believed that over the past 12 months prices increased "more rapidly", according to the research by the Professional Provident Society (PPS) and the University of the Witwatersrand.
While 14.2% of respondents believed prices increased "much more rapidly", 20.8% believed prices increased at the same rate, 3% believed prices increased at a lower rate, and 0.5% believed they rose at a much lower rate over the past 12 months.
In the survey 3 474 respondents were asked two questions and could chose between five answers.
They were told that over the past five years prices increased on average by 5.5% and during 2013 prices increased by 5.7%.
The first question was how much they believed inflation increased over the past 12 months.
People were then asked how much they expected prices in general to increase during the next 12 months.
According to the survey, 58.7% said more rapidly, while 26% said at the same rate, 9.9% said at "much more rapidly", 5.1% said at a lower rate, and 0.3% at a much lower rate.
PPS received 3 474 responses from its members, which made it a large data sample, albeit not a representative sample of a cross-section of the South African population due to PPS's graduate professional membership, it said.
In October, South Africa's inflation was 5.9%.
PPS describes itself as a mutual financial services company that focuses exclusively on graduate professionals and offers financial solutions for insurance, investment, and healthcare.
ALSO READ: As it happened: Interest rates remain unchanged at 5.75%