Malawi population censuses

Literature › Primary sources

Kind	population census
Producer	Malawi National Statistical Office / colonial census authorities
Coverage	1931-1998
Works using it	4

Debates

Debate	Works
The mine migrant labour system: origins, recruitment, foreign labour and stabilisation	3
Cheap labour thesis and the function of the reserves	1
The job colour bar, white labour and its erosion	1
Did the apartheid economy fail? Growth, productivity, investment and the post-1970s crisis	1
Liberal vs revisionist: was apartheid functional or dysfunctional for capitalist growth?	1
Post-apartheid economic policy, governance and corruption	1
Sanctions, disinvestment and the anti-apartheid movement	1

Works using this source

Work	As cited	Period	How used
Chirwa (1996)	Malawi 1977 population census data as analysed by Christiansen and Kydd, 'The Pattern of Internal Migration'	1977	Net internal migration by region used to show movement from the north to estate and urban areas.
Dinkelman and Mariotti (2014)	Historical Censuses of Malawi (1931, 1945, 1966) digitized for district baseline variables	1931, 1945, 1966	Baseline controls (1931 population density, 1945 literacy, 1966 wage employment) and balance tests.
Dinkelman and Mariotti (2014)	Malawi 1977 Population Census (aggregate reports, district x five-year age group x sex), newly digitized	1977	Supplies education outcomes for older comparison and exposed cohorts, child labor shares, ever-worked-abroad counts, and net internal migration rates.
Dinkelman and Mariotti (2014)	Malawi 1998 Population Census (individual-level data)	1998	Provides adult education outcomes (years of schooling, any primary school, bilingualism) for younger and exposed cohorts at district and sub-district level.
Kanyenze (2004)	Malawi 1998 population and housing census	1987-1998	Shows the decline in the foreign-born share after Mozambican refugees returned.
Mariotti and Fourie (2014)	Malawian census data (Dinkelman & Mariotti 2014)	Post-1967 and post-1974 cohorts	Used to estimate the long-run schooling effects of exposure to labour migration to South African mines.