Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit Migration from the Northern Cape. by Eldridge Moses and Derek Yu WORKING PAPER SERIES Number 32 About the Author(s) and Acknowledgments Elridge Moses and Derek Yu are researchers in the Department of Economics at Stellenbosch Univer- sity We wish to thank the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for funding the study Recommended citation Moses, E., and D. Yu (2009) Migration from the Northern Cape. A Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit Working Paper Number 32. Cape Town: SALDRU, University of Cape Town ISBN: 978-0-9814304-3-0 © Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, UCT, 2009 Working Papers can be downloaded in Adobe Acrobat format from www.saldru.uct.ac.za. Printed copies of Working Papers are available for R15.00 each plus vat and postage charges. Orders may be directed to: The Administrative Officer, SALDRU, University of Cape Town, Private Bag, Rondebosch, 7701, Tel: (021) 650 5696, Fax: (021) 650 5697, Email: [email protected] Migration from the Northern Cape SALDRU Working Paper Number 32 University of Cape Town June 2009 Eldridge Moses and Derek Yu CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION In South Africa, the causes of migration and its impact on society first became entrenched, institutionalised and studied in the latter decades of the 19th Century as mining activity catapulted the country onto the world economic stage. As South Africa evolved into a more modern, capitalist society and agriculture became a less attractive employment option due to a period of crisis at the end of the 1800s, various population groups started migrating towards urban centres. Rural Afrikaners who had been displaced from their land and Black labour migrants constituted the bulk of migrants to urban centres. These population sub-groups were quite different in the motivations and outcomes of their migration, with many of the rural Afrikaners being absorbed into state employment while Black movers were mostly labour migrants. Today, migration is the subject of renewed focus in South African research and policy circles as fears of its destabilising consequences on provincial economic and spatial planning are re- ignited. Population movement can impact heavily on housing, education, food security, public health, public order and institutional development with potentially dire consequences for both the immigrant and native population. The potential magnitude of the destabilisation effect has prompted some researchers (Cross and Omoluabi, 2006; Weeks, 1996) to suggest that of the three demographic processes (fertility, migration, mortality), migration could have the greatest short-term impact on society. The societal impact of migration is explained by Weeks (1996: 229): “Although the consequences of migration for the individual are of considerable interest (especially to the one uprooted), a more pervasive aspect of the social consequences of 1 migration is the impact on the demographic composition and social structure of both the donor and host areas. The demographic composition is influenced by the selective nature of migration, particularly the selectivity by age. The donor area typically loses people from its young adult population, those people then being added to the host area. The host area has its level of natural (resources) increase at the expense of the donor area.” Cross (2006: 205) argues that the very vision of a successful socio-demographic transition is at stake – in order for migrants to escape poverty, cities need to provide rural in-migrants with the foundations and tools they require to be successful by helping them enter the job market, provide quality education to their children and invest in their futures. Migration can also impact positively on migrant and native populations by increasing human capital, filling employment gaps, increasing the market for goods and facilitating better service delivery by the concentration of populations. In the South African context, migration can also be seen as a potential tool for redressing inequities (Kok et al, 2006: 3). In the past, segregationist policies prevented people of colour from moving to areas with more opportunities and better service, resulting in a perverse situation of high population concentrations in relatively rural areas. Research after the abolition of influx control in 1986 and democratisation in 1994 was therefore understandably concentrated on finding out whether migration patterns would change as a result. The incomparability and shallow nature of South African datasets in terms of migration has been lamented by many researchers attempting to document and analyse the phenomenon. Many studies have focused on smaller regions within the country rather than on a national level. The demarcation of new provinces and the vastly different characteristics of nine provinces render the generalisation of local studies to the national level an inane exercise. It is with this realisation that we will confine our later discussion to the Northern Cape. Chapter 2 will describe and capture the essence of migration as well as provide a solid economics-inspired framework which we can employ to analyse migration with specific reference to the Northern Cape experience. This will be achieved by defining terms describing migration, reviewing economic and non-economic theories dealing with the initiation and perpetuation of migration and concluding with a theoretical discussion on migration selectivity elucidated by recent South African evidence. Chapter 3 will provide a general profile of Northern Cape, while chapter 4 will explain the methodology on how the different migration groups are derived. Chapter 5 will provide a descriptive analysis of the migrants from the Northern Cape, with reference specifically to the migrants’ demographic, location, work and household characteristics. Finally, chapter 6 will present a multivariate analysis of the migration decision at the census year, as well as the labour force participation and employment of the Northern Cape migrants to other provinces, using several of the variables in the descriptive analysis in chapter 5. Chapter 7 concludes the report. 2 CHAPTER 2 MIGRATION LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 DEFINITIONS OF MIGRATION The definition of migration is complex and inspires lively debate among researchers of population movements. In contemporary South Africa, migration is generally understood to reflect the major societal changes caused by the movement of people from rural to urban areas. From a development perspective it is also useful to distinguish between different kinds of migration so that poverty alleviation and spatial planning are more successful in their implementation. This section will first define migration and then briefly discuss terms associated with migration to introduce the reader to the terminology used in the rest of the paper. Migration can be defined as “the crossing of the boundary of a predefined spatial unit by persons involved in a change of residence” (Kok et al, 2006: 10). Our paper uses South African Census data where the spatial unit is magisterial districts as demarcated for Census 1996. Accordingly, we will define migration as: a change in the magisterial district of usual residence. Thus, movements within the same district are disregarded as well as visits (temporary migration) from other districts. Migration origin, household/community of origin and sending area are all terms used to refer to the place where the migrant comes from. Similarly, migration destination, receiving region and destination area are used to describe the place where the move ends. A labour migrant is defined by Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) as being an individual “who is absent from home (or country) for more than one month of a year for the purpose of finding work or working.” Internal migration refers to moves within the same country. In most of our analyses, this term will apply. Within the same country, people who migrate are out-migrants from their sending area and in-migrants into the destination area. Intra-migration refers to moves out of the magisterial district but within provincial boundaries. Residential mobility refers to movements within the same migration-defining area such as changing addresses in the same magisterial district. Circulatory migration refers to migration of a family or individual in the earlier stages of their lives to an urban area and who return to the rural sending area upon retirement. Oscillatory migration refers to the phenomenon of regular movement between the community of origin and areas where employment is pursued or gained. Typically, the individual moves to the city, returning periodically to the family left behind in the rural area. Gravity flow refers to permanent migration of people. 3 2.2 ECONOMIC THEORIES AND MODELS OF MIGRATION 2.2.1 INTRODUCTION The literature on migration abounds with assertions that economic considerations are the real root of migration decisions. The literature overwhelmingly suggests that migration decisions are almost entirely motivated by economic considerations, and that economic incentives or disincentives would be adequate to encourage or discourage migration. However, the absence of attitudinal or psychological explanations for migration decisions is hard to dismiss and the unavailability or inaccessibility of attitudinal data for previous studies implies that a “best possible explanation” (in these cases highlighting only economic variables) must suffice. Indeed, as Morrison (1980: 8) cited