Migration and gender in South Africa: Following bright lights and the fortunes of others?

Abstract

Internal migration in South Africa has a strong gender dimension. Historically, the apartheid-era migrant labour system meant that predominantly black African men moved to urban areas without their families. After the abolition of influx controls in 1986, many women relocated, presumably to join their male partners. The period of migration feminization was also coupled with labour market feminization. However, existing research shows that increased female labour supply was poorly matched by labour market absorption, leading to rising unemployment among black African women. This paper studies incentives for female migration in this context, by building a gravity model of male and female inter-municipal migration. We find that neither men nor women move primarily for family reasons. Instead, they follow the traditional male migrant route to well-lit economic centres. Women also do not migrate primarily for increases in their own labour market opportunities, but tend to flock to regions where other fortunate groups have higher earnings potential. While this might signal that migrants base relocation decisions on incorrect information (and could in turn explain why many migrants have unfulfilled expectations), our results also show that women not only move for work, but for public services. The implications are twofold if migration is to alleviate poverty in the long run: first, in the short run, management of public resources must improve, as poor (women) place large emphasis on their effect; and second, labour market barriersespecially into the informal sectorshould be better understood.JEL classification: C21, R23, R2, J16

Differential demographic transitions for Women of different ethnicities in Gauteng, South Africa, 1996–2011

“…The decline in SMAMs in most areas and the declining proportion single Black women in the City of Johannesburg is a surprising outcome. However, as this a migration destination, the in‐migration of mainly Black populations from other regions may have had a lowering effect (Von Fintel & Moses, ).…”

Long-Run Spatial Inequality in South Africa: Early Settlement Patterns and Separate Development

“…Kuznetsian thought would predict that the commencement of freedom of movement in the 1980s should have progressively alleviated large spatial welfare differences. However, apartheid-era spatial differences continue to be replicated (von Fintel & Moses, 2017;Burger et al, 2017). New agglomeration did not occur close to the densely populated homelands in the democratic era.…”

“…Unemployment also remains high in urban centres, however, yet lower than in former homelands, so that the probability of obtaining a job after migration remains poor. Therefore, despite large migration flows since the abolition of influx controls in 1986, unemployment has also not shifted to urban areas to equalise across space (von Fintel & Moses, 2017). Mudiriza (2018) provides first estimates of regional wage convergence for South Africa: using post-apartheid census data, he estimates that it would take 19 years to halve the regional wage gap in South Africa.…”

The labour market impacts of female internal migration: Evidence from the end of Apartheid

“…Sometimes they could find work as domestic helpers or in factories but the Apartheid regime was mostly interested in employing male migrant labour. Furthermore, to a large extent, the Pass Laws prevented the spouses or children of pass book holders from accompanying them to the urban areas they were employed in (Von Fintel and Moses, 2017;Healy-Clancy, 2017).…”

“…Historically, the Apartheid-era migrant labour system meant that predominantly black African men moved to urban areas without their families. After the abolition of influx controls, many women relocated to join their male partners (Von Fintel and Moses, 2017). The share of women in the total migrant population grew at the same time as female participation in the labour market increased.…”