The expected well-being of urban refugees and asylum-seekers in Johannesburg

Abstract

The influx of asylum-seekers and refugees from across Africa into democratic South Africa has increased significantly. The aim of this paper is to determine the factors that influences the expect well-being of this unique group. Expected well-being is an important determinant of both the decision to migrate and the choice of a country of destination. Knowledge about this determinant therefore informs refugee policies. The results show that only a few of the factors found in the literature explaining the expected well-being of voluntary migrants also explain the expected well-being of forced migrants. However, a number of factors found in the literature that explain the subjective well-being and well-being in general of refugees and asylum-seekers also went towards explaining the expected well-being of this group. These factors include: government assistance, culture, the time spent in South Africa, economic factors, crime, refugee status, reasons for leaving the home countries and the number of people staying in a house in the receiving country. The findings of this study emphasise the differences between forced and voluntary migrants and highlight the factors that influence the expected well-being of forced migrants. These in turn shed light on migration decisions and the choice of destination countries.

Refugee Mobility: Evidence from Phone Data in Turkey

“…Researchers from various disciplines have been interested in measuring the impact of national policies on asylum seekers' health (Steele et al, 2002;Mills, 2012;Ziersch et al, 2017). A study from Greyling (2016) finds that government assistance, culture, economic factors, crime, refugee status, reasons for leaving the home countries, time spent and number of people staying in a house in the host country are all policies that affect asylum seekers in South Africa. We therefore augment the specification with variables capturing political factors such as boycotts, rally for leadership change and protest against the local authorities.…”

Connecting with home, keeping in touch: physical and virtual mobility across stretched families in sub-Saharan Africa

“… 11 Information in a UN High Commission for Refugees report in 2012 implies that South Africa was the largest recipient of individual asylum applications worldwide from 2005 to 2011: ‘Whereas South Africa had been the leading destination country of new asylum-seekers for the six previous years, asylum levels there dropped by almost half in 2012, compared to 2011’ (UNHCR 2013: 26). However, this claim is open to dispute (see Greyling 2016). …”