The migration and development nexus in Southern Africa: Introduction

Literature › Works

Jonathan Crush; Bruce Frayne (2007). The migration and development nexus in Southern Africa: Introduction. Development Southern Africa 24(1). Development Bank of Southern Africa / Taylor & Francis.

Type	journal article
Scope	Post-1994 South African economy
Method	synthesis review
Period studied	c.1850–2006
Regions	Southern Africa, SADC, South Africa, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Mozambique
Themes	mining migrant labour, demography urbanisation, inequality poverty unemployment, comparative theory, methods data sources, transition post apartheid
Citation key	crush2007

Argument

The introduction to a special issue frames the 'migration-development nexus' as a global policy agenda item since 2000. It sorts the literature into three perspectives: migration as positive for development, as negative, and as complex and place-specific. For southern Africa it argues that migration should not be seen as unremittingly negative, because it is an essential household livelihood and development strategy. It contrasts this with the dominant historical underdevelopment view of labour-reserve economies. It then argues that policy is hampered by weak data, by the separation of internal from international migration, and by the failure to mainstream migration into development plans. It ends by summarising the issue's essays on brain drain, urban livelihoods, remittances, re-gendered migration (including mine retrenchments) and HIV/AIDS.

Evidence and method

Secondary literature and UN, World Bank and IOM publications; UNDESA migrant-stock tables; World Bank remittance estimates; Sussex DRC diaspora data; SAMP survey research. It is an editorial overview and presents no original primary data.

Findings

• The historiographical orthodoxy attributes regional migration to colonial coercion and dispossession. (p. 13)

  argues that migration in southern Africa was primarily a function of colonial coercion, including land dispossession, heavy taxation and support of white settlers at the expense of black peasants

• Labour-reserve economies are described as subsidising low wages in mines and farms. (p. 13)

  in which the rural areas experienced declines in production and productivity and acted to subsidise low wages in the mines and on the farms.

• The orthodox view equates regional migration with underdevelopment. (p. 13)

  Deep within most thinking about migration in southern Africa is the belief that it has been a cause of underdevelopment rather than development.

• Social historians in the 1980s qualified the negative view, showing household-level accumulation. (p. 14)

  While the overall impact of migration on a region may have been negative, some migrant-sending households were able to use migration as a strategy for accumulating resources and reinvesting in local development.

• Migration is framed as an essential household livelihood strategy in the region. (p. 14)

  Migrants in southern Africa are reputedly fond of saying that there is only one thing worse than being a migrant worker, and that is not being a migrant worker.

• The mining industry's traditionally male migrant labour force has shrunk over roughly the past decade, a trend the issue examines through sending communities. (p. 18)

  the mining industry has seen its traditionally male migrant labour force reduced over the past ten years.

• Lesotho farm migrants to South Africa are mainly older, poor women. (p. 18)

  migrants from Lesotho who work across the border on South African farms are predominantly older women, some of the poorest citizens of Lesotho

• Remittances to developing countries have grown rapidly. (p. 5)

  Globally, remittances have more than doubled in value in the past decade, easily outstripping

• Global migrant stock has expanded sharply over 1960-2005. (p. 3)

  The global migrant stock increased from 75.9 million in 1960 to 190.6 million in 2005 (Table 1).

• Migration data are weak and policy-research mismatch persists. (p. 12)

  Data gathering and research on migration and development tends to be supply rather than demand driven.