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A Review of Current Literature and Recent Research on Migration in Southern Africa

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Dori Posel (2002). A Review of Current Literature and Recent Research on Migration in Southern Africa. Work in progress paper, University of Natal, Durban (March 2002). University of Natal, Economics.
Type working paper
Scope Post-1994 South African economy
Method synthesis review
Period studied c.1900 (historical background)–2002
Regions South Africa, KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape, Northern Province/Limpopo, Lesotho, Botswana, Swaziland, Southern Africa
Themes mining migrant labour, demography urbanisation, bantustans removals influx, labour markets wages, inequality poverty unemployment, transition post apartheid, methods data sources
Citation key posel2002

Argument

The review organises the literature on voluntary migration in Southern Africa around three questions: who migrates and why, what ties link migrants to their origin households, and what migration does to migrants and the places they leave. Its central claim is that the literature, both economic and Marxist-structuralist, treats the migrant household as a unitary, harmonious decision-maker. This hides gender inequality and conflicts of interest, and so cannot explain male dominance in migration, the recent rise in female migration, falling remittances, or uneven development outcomes. After influx control ended, the expectation was permanent urbanisation, but case studies show continued circularity, small-step and rural-to-rural moves, and return migration, shaped by unemployment, informalisation and HIV/AIDS. Section B shows that national surveys (Census, PSLSD, OHS, LFS) have progressively made migration and remittances invisible, so most knowledge rests on small-sample and ethnographic work, and the Agincourt and Hlabisa demographic surveillance systems are proposed as under-used alternatives.

Evidence and method

Secondary literature review of economics, anthropology, sociology, geography and health studies. It draws on the 1993 PSLSD (remittance frequency and amounts, Table 1), the OHS and LFS questionnaires, Census design, and the Agincourt and Hlabisa demographic surveillance systems. It also cites case studies (Duncan Village, Qwaqwa and Matatiele, KwaZulu-Natal, Northern Province) and the Carter and May 1993-98 panel.

Findings

  • Historically, institutional controls blocked permanent urban settlement for most migrants, and their removal is the key change that current research examines. (p. 2)

    Migration into and within South Africa historically occurred under specific institutional conditions, where a range of measures made permanent urban settlement impossible for most migrants.

  • Anti-urbanisation legislation compelled migrants to maintain rural ties and helped create oscillating migration. (p. 10)

    Legislation, preventing the urbanisation of national and cross-border migrants probably forced migrants to actively maintain connections with their rural community and family and helped to establish a pattern of oscillating migration in South Africa

  • Early migrancy used cattle advances, so that wages were controlled by rural households and migrants' cash was constrained. (p. 11)

    In the early system of migrancy in South Africa, migrant workers were frequently paid in the form of cattle advances, where cattle were central to rural production and social reproduction

  • Remittances were far from universal even in 1993: a fifth of rural African households with migrants received none. (p. 10)

    Approximately 21 percent of all African rural households with migrant workers did not receive any remittances during the year of the survey.

  • Pension receipt appears to crowd out remittances in rural households with migrants. (p. 12)

    Jenson (1998) and Posel (2001b) both found that in rural African households with migrant household members, remittances were significantly lower when pensions were also received.

  • Households dependent on remittances were mostly poor in 1993. (p. 15)

    In 1993, for example, more than 70 percent of households dependent on remittances lived in poverty.

  • The dominant Southern African view is that migrant labour contributed to agricultural decline in sending areas. (p. 14)

    In research on migration in Southern Africa, the dominant view has been that migrant labour has contributed to agricultural decline in sending areas.

  • Post-apartheid evidence does not show a simple shift from circular migration to permanent urbanisation. (p. 9)

    Pockets of research on migration therefore are identifying clear variations to the expectation that circular migration in South Africa would be replaced by permanent urbanisation.

  • Marxist structuralist accounts of male migration also relied on a unitary household model. (p. 5)

    Marxist structuralist work on migration in Southern Africa also tended to invoke a unitary household model

  • Female migration is rising, which creates a research agenda on household and community change. (p. 6)

    Although most migrants in South Africa remain male, in recent years, studies have documented an increase in female migration

  • No national data exist on remittances over time. (p. 12)

    There are no national data available to measure remittances and how these have changed over time, even for successive cross-sections of the population.

  • National survey design has made migration nearly invisible. (p. 17)

    Ironically, in each year the quality and quantity of data collected on migration and migrants has decreased such that in the current national survey in South Africa, migration is all but invisible.