No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
How do Households Work? Migration, the Household and Remittance Behaviour in South Africa
... However, there has been little effort to document the remitting behavior of internal migrants despite its dominance. Although a few studies have examined remittances originating from regional international migrants (Azam and Gubert 2006;Makina 2013;Jena 2018) and rural-urban migrants (Posel 2001;McKay and Deshingkar 2014), we lack a comprehensive analysis that captures all types of migrations. ...
... In sub-Saharan Africa, this research has shown that, among other things, remitting behavior is a function of migrants' age, gender, human capital, area of destination, the relationship between migrating and remaining family members, and origin-household's socioeconomic status. For instance, Makina (2013) and Posel (2001) show that in Zimbabwe and South Africa, respectively, remitters are more likely to be older than younger migrants. Studies have also shown that nuclear family members are also more likely to remit than non-nuclear members (see, for instance, Stark (1991) shown that poorer households tend to receive more remittances than households with high socioeconomic status. ...
... Findings on gender, however, are mixed. Some studies have shown that women have a higher remitting propensity than men (Posel 2001), others show opposite results (Dodson et al. 2008), and yet others find no gender differences at all (Campbell 2010). Family and gender system differences probably explain these divergent findings. ...
This dissertation follows a three-chapter format, addressing migration-related issues in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The first and second chapters use Census data and logit models to examine labor market incorporation of African-born immigrants in South Africa, a country that has become a magnet for regional migration and a prime example of South-South migration. Chapter one examines a wide range of labor market outcomes for immigrant men relative to their internal migrant peers. It examines the extent to which prior models and arguments based on South-North migrants also apply to South-South flows. Results show considerable support for segmented assimilation perspectives. However, the existence of large informal sectors in the South African context is the central barrier to immigrants’ occupational and income attainment, a factor less relevant in the South-North context. In addition, better-resourced immigrant communities have better incorporation experiences than well-established communities. The second chapter investigates women’s labor market participation, considering women’s status, socio-cultural norms, and demographic trends in SSA. It explores the relative importance of human capital and family characteristics in explaining labor market disparities between immigrants and natives. Results underscore similar challenges to those experienced by immigrant men in South Africa. Comparatively, immigrants exhibit poor incorporation experiences than South African-born internal migrants. Family characteristics are the key factors explaining variations in immigrant women’s labor market decisions. In contrast, human capital factors are more salient for South African women, suggesting the importance of gender egalitarianism. Finally, the third chapter employs probit and Tobit models to examine household remittances in four SSA countries using World Bank data. It explores how family ties, migrant, and origin-household characteristics shape remitting behavior. Here, results are consistent with remitting patterns and motivations observed elsewhere. Altruism appears to be the primary motive behind remittances in SSA. However, the altruistic behavior is primarily driven by the obligation to remit rather than a selfless concern for the non-migrating household members as pure-altruism suggests. National origin variation in remitting behavior underscores the importance of access to international labor markets, gender dynamics, and origin countries’ level of development in shaping the pattern and use of remittances.
... Individuals may therefore maintain multiple concurrent household memberships over time. Such conceptualisation has thus challenged the primacy of viewing households as independent units of analysis, especially among rural South African communities 14,[43][44][45][46] . ...
... Considering the geographic barriers to accessing public facilities and the lack of public transport in our study context, these co-located social ties may be a major source of both insurance and influence on household resource allocation. However, having cross-regional social ties can be seen as a crucial livelihood strategy under rural povertyhousehold members may locate in different regions in pursuit of diversification of income streams and with a means to collectively contribute to the socioeconomic welfare of their networked families 24,43,46 . Notably, many households rely heavily on remittances from members working in distant towns and cities 54 . ...
Given limited institutional resources, low-income populations often rely on social networks to improve their socioeconomic outcomes. However, it remains in question whether small-scale social interactions could affect large-scale economic inequalities in under-resourced contexts. Here, we leverage population-level data from one of the poorest South African settings to construct a large-scale, geographically defined, inter-household social network. Using a multilevel network model, we show that having social ties in close geographic proximity is associated with stable household asset conditions, while geographically distant ties correlate to changes in asset allocation. Notably, we find that localised network interactions are associated with an increase in wealth inequality at the regional level, demonstrating how macro-level inequality may arise from micro-level social processes. Our findings highlight the importance of understanding complex social connections underpinning inter-household resource dynamics, and raise the potential of large-scale social assistance programs to reduce disparities in resource-ownership by accounting for local social constraints.
... Earlier stud ies have pri mar ily used "preestablished" categories to iden tify com mon house hold typol o gies, such as sin gleper son, nuclear, skipgen er a tional, mul ti gen er a tional, and com pos ite house holds (e.g., Ibisomi and De Wet 2014;Pesando and Global Family Change Team 2019;Zimmer and Treleaven 2020). However, this approach may miss the inher ently and invari ably com plex fam ily arrange ments in rural com mu ni ties, as rural house holds may be more appro pri ately con ceived as a social group consisting of a mix ture of close and extended fam ily, with mem bers born in dif fer ent cohorts and with vary ing lev els of socio eco nomic attain ment (Hosegood 2009;Manderson and Block 2016;McDaniel and Zulu 1996;Posel 2001a;Russell 2003;Schatz et al. 2012). To bet ter con cep tu al ize and con tex tu al ize the diver sity of rural house holds, we uti lize a latent var i able approach that simul ta neously exam ines inter re la tion ships among house hold-level struc tural and com po si tional prop er ties, includ ing house hold head's sex and age and house hold mem bers' age com po si tion and migra tion sta tus. ...
... Some have suggested a pos si ble con ver gence to a nuclear house hold model, as evidenced by a nota ble increase in sin gle-per son house holds (Amaoteng and Kalule-Sabiti 2008;Ziehl 2001). Conversely, oth ers have chal lenged whether the instruments used in censuses and social sur veys can ade quately cap ture the com plex ity and flu id ityofSouthAfri canliv ingarrange mentsowingtolong-embed dedfam ilyval ues and rapid social ref or ma tion in the postapartheid era (Posel 2001a;Russell 2003). In extending the mul ti di men sional per spec tive on global fam ily changes (Castro Torres et al. 2022;Pesando and Global Family Change Team 2019), an impor tant fol low-up ques tion from these debates is whether a smaller, nuclearized struc ture or a complex, mixed-gen er a tional house hold type would per sist through out the past decades when South Africa expe ri enced a dra matic shift in its labor econ omy and pop u la tion struc ture. ...
Investigations into household structure in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) provide important insight into how families manage domestic life in response to resource allocation and caregiving needs during periods of rapid sociopolitical and health-related challenges. Recent evidence on household structure in many LMICs contrasts with long-standing viewpoints of worldwide convergence to a Western nuclearized household model. Here, we adopt a household-centered theoretical and methodological framework to investigate longitudinal patterns and dynamics of household structure in a rural South African setting during a period of high AIDS-related mortality and socioeconomic change. Data come from the Agincourt Health and Socio-Demographic Surveillance System (2003–2015). Using latent transition models, we derived six distinct household types by examining conditional interdependency between household heads’ characteristics, members’ age composition, and migration status. More than half of households were characterized by their complex and multigenerational profiles, with considerable within-typology variation in household size and dependency structure. Transition analyses showed stability of household types under female headship, while higher proportions of nuclearized household types dissolved over time. Household dissolution was closely linked to prior mortality experiences—particularly, following death of a male head. Our findings highlight the need to better conceptualize and contextualize household changes across populations and over time.
... The reliance on social connections for various forms of aid and resources may be substantial in many LMICs, given a mixture of a lack of institutional support and limited economic opportunities (Posel, 2001;Knight et al., 2016). In many LMIC settings, like rural South Africa, accessed status may be a vital resource and source of support. ...
... In many LMIC settings, like rural South Africa, accessed status may be a vital resource and source of support. Today, nearly three decades after the end of apartheid, many older adults continue to be the sole income-generator and are expected to perform multiple household roles (Posel, 2001;Hosegood et al., 2007;Schatz et al., 2015). Formal employment was and remains extremely limited in rural areas, and households lack the presence of working-age members because of both HIV and circular migration for work (Collinson et al., 2016). ...
Background
Social capital theory conceptualizes accessed status (the socioeconomic status of social contacts) as interpersonal resources that generate positive health returns, while social cost theory suggests that accessed status can harm health due to the sociopsychological costs of generating and maintaining these relationships. Evidence for both hypotheses has been observed in higher-income countries, but not in more resource-constrained settings.
We therefore investigated whether the dual functions of accessed status on health may be patterned by its interaction with network structure and functions among an older population in rural South Africa.
Method
We used baseline survey data from the HAALSI study (“Health and Aging in Africa: a Longitudinal Study of an INDEPTH Community in South Africa”) among 4,379 adults aged 40 and older. We examined the direct effect of accessed status (measured as network members’ literacy), as well as its interaction with network size and instrumental support, on life satisfaction and self-rated health.
Results
In models without interactions, accessed status was positively associated with life satisfaction but not self-rated health. Higher accessed status was positively associated with both outcomes for those with fewer personal contacts. Interaction effects were further patterned by gender, being most health-protective for women with a smaller network and most health-damaging for men with a larger network.
Conclusions
Supporting social capital theory, we find that having higher accessed status is associated with better health and well-being for older adults in a setting with limited formal support resources. However, the explanatory power of both theories appears to depending on other key factors, such as gender and network size, highlighting the importance of contextualizing theories in practice.
... These accounts, they argued, ignored the ways in which the gender division of labour had been upheld by 'internal structures of control' in rural communities, including social pressure, gender ideology and women's economic dependence (Walker 1990). Chiefs, fathers and husbands could restrict women's mobility, and thereby reinforce their traditional roles in rural production (Bozzoli 1983; see also Posel 2001a). That women remained behind 'to keep the home fires burning' may be consistent with the predictions of a unitary household model. ...
... That women remained behind 'to keep the home fires burning' may be consistent with the predictions of a unitary household model. However, this would also be predicted in a model where men control household decision-making and resources, and use this control to maximise their own income (Posel 2001a; see also Cerrutti and Massey 2001 for a critique of the unitary household approach to explaining female migration). If men are more likely to migrate than women either because this division of labour maximises household resources or because men can 'choose themselves' as migrants, then we would expect that unmarried women who do not live with men are more likely than other women to migrate. ...
... More than three out of four rural African households report receiving remittances. 3 Data collected on the remittances sent by migrants show that migrants remit considerably more to immediate kin -spouses and children -than to more distant kin, and also that they remit less if they have any of their children living with them (Posel, 2001a). Using cross-sectional data, Jensen (2004) calculated that public pensions crowd out private remittances, i.e. that migrants remit less to kin who receive a pension than to kin who do not, controlling for other factors (see also Posel, 2001aPosel, , 2001b. ...
... 3 Data collected on the remittances sent by migrants show that migrants remit considerably more to immediate kin -spouses and children -than to more distant kin, and also that they remit less if they have any of their children living with them (Posel, 2001a). Using cross-sectional data, Jensen (2004) calculated that public pensions crowd out private remittances, i.e. that migrants remit less to kin who receive a pension than to kin who do not, controlling for other factors (see also Posel, 2001aPosel, , 2001b. ...
... A circular pattern of migration was created, where men would be away from home most of the time to take contract work in urban areas, with women left behind to look after children (Posel, 2001a). This type of migration reduced rural productivity and fuelled rural-urban migration (Posel, 2001b). ...
The thesis examines the drivers behind the transformation of city centers in South Africa. In doing this a system dynamic modelling mixed with statistical and mathematical models were used. Results reflected that in assessing the root causes of city transformation system dynamics models alone a not enough to magnify root causes of city transformation. However, population dynamics, income and houses are the main drivers of city transformation.
... Flows of internal migration between the rural and urban have defined the experience of South Africans of colour for generations (Reed 2013). The history of labour migration in the former Bantustans resulting from Apartheid segregationist policies and the profitability of the country's mines has been dealt with substantively by historians and social scientists (Posel 2001;Kok et al. 2003;William Beinart 2012). Other more complicated perspectives on labour trends in a neoliberal global economy, and particularly circular migration in South Africa, have also been advanced, many of which have adopted a networks approach (or related transnational approach, which incorporates some theories of network connectivity) (Samers 2009). ...
This article explores how agrarian change and the current prevalence of non-agrarian livelihoods in rural South Africa might be assessed using the concept of adaptive capacity. Agrarian change is often characterised as "de-agrarianisation" or "de-peasantisation," which implies a wholesale change in the composition of agricultural areas. While some of the research on southern Africa regards these processes as linear, other studies argue that the dynamics are hybridised: large-scale agriculture is being increasingly abandoned, while smallholder agriculture remains intact or becomes even more robust. We argue that a complex non-linear deactivation process is taking place, leading to less agricultural activity and a reduction in the levels of agricultural production. Adaptive capacity and agrarian change are not necessarily related, and households' livelihoods and health status may continuously evolve without being adversely affected by an alteration in their use of resources, particularly natural resources. Using a mixed methodological framework, including social network analysis and qualitative interviews, the article highlights the importance of considering rural people's responses to global environmental change, and how their agrarian contexts may not align perfectly with discourses surrounding adaptive capacity.
... He argued that care of the elderly was manifested through remittances of migrants (for example, for paying medical bills, financing private care, and so on), and could thereby be viewed as an act of reciprocity for German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) the initial investment (that is, investments in migrants' education; provision of capital for migration) of the family prior to the move. Similarly, Posel (2001) argued that more educated individuals who were migrating to urban areas in South Africa were expected to remit resources to rural households out of reciprocity. However, whether it indeed represented (intergenerational) reciprocity, (reciprocal/intergenerational) altruism, or other motives that drove migrants' remittances is an empirically difficult question (Laferrère & Wolff, 2006;Hamoudi & Thomas, 2006). ...
This paper addresses the self-selection of potential migrants. In particular, the study examines whether risk and time preferences explain a significant proportion in the movement heterogeneity of individuals. It is further intended to shed light on the role of social preferences (trust, altruism, reciprocity) as potential migratory determinants. By making use of a unique cross-sectional data set on migration intentions (Gallup World Poll) and experimentally-validated preferences (the Global Preference Survey) covering 70 countries worldwide, a probit model is estimated. The empirical results provide evidence that potential migrants exhibit higher levels of risk-taking and patience than their counterparts who stay at home (the stayers). This holds true across differing countries with various cultural backgrounds and income levels. Trust and negative reciprocity are found to be significantly related to migration aspirations as well. Yet conclusive clarifications still remain necessary, providing impetuses for future research.
... However, while a result of this type is rarely observed in African countries, it is often observed in Asian and Latin American countries (Lucas, 1997). Posel and Casale (2003) and Posel (2001), in their studies on internal migration in South Africa, have emphasized that more and more women are increasing their participation in migratory flows of workers due to changes which appear in the functioning of the labor market and progress accomplished in terms of the education of girls. In terms of life as a couple, column (4) shows that youth living as a couple, those living in rural area, and those characterized by sociopolitical instability (armed ethnic conflicts, etc.) are more willing to migrate. ...
This paper analyzes youth internal migration in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and its impact on entrepreneurship startup in a fresh post‐conflict context. Building on a national representative survey conducted in 2005, a recursive bivariate probit specification is used to jointly estimate the decision models of both migration and entrepreneurship. To evaluate the robustness of results, the propensity score matching method is used to test the concordance of the results after eliminating the redundant impact of unobserved factors. The two main conclusions are that youth migration increases the probability of being an entrepreneur, but in the informal sector. In addition, like secondary and post‐secondary education, the duration of stay after migrating is an important factor to being an entrepreneur in the formal sector. These conclusions are expected to enlighten policy‐makers as to the importance of promoting secondary and post‐secondary education as well as inclusive growth investments that may absorb more youth labor in formal sectors. This is the first exercise in the case of the DRC and since it focuses on youth, the paper makes a unique contribution to the literature related to the link between migration and entrepreneurship in a post‐war context.
... Women's greater reliability in remittance sending, for instance, has often been linked to family obligations and responsibilities that especially women are expected to focus on, as compared with value orientation from a male perspective (Posel, 2001;Resurreccíon 2005;Wong, 2006;Abrego, 2009). As women migrants, moreover, tend to stay at the place of destination for a shorter period of time, they are less likely to settle there and instead are more committed to their family at home (Chant, 1998;Rahman & Fee, 2009). ...
Remittances play a central role in debates on migration and development as well as migration as adaptation to climate change. We seek to contribute to the growing body of literature that addresses the role of gender relations for remittance sending and usage. Based on multisited qualitative research on rural–urban migration in Thailand, we apply the concept of translocal social resilience to expound the multilocal and intersectional dimension of remittances and their impact on social resilience. Building on typical constellations of remittance transfer and usage, the paper accentuates how gender, generational relations, and the household's socio‐economic status shape remittance practices and their effects on social resilience across space. We can thus conclude that addressing intersecting socio‐spatial levels and axes of difference enhances the understanding of remittance potentials for resilience, which also enriches research that frames migration as a means of adaptation.
... other factors, male migrant workers were often housed in single-sex compounds on long contracts. This provided them with little opportunity to build relationships and engage with their children, and meant support was often delivered to their rurally based families via remittances (Posel, 2001;Budlender and Lund, 2011). In 2008, most children in South Africa did not live with their fathers, but rather with their mother (40%), although women's labour migration has increased in recent years. ...
.....This report presents findings from an in-depth
study of women’s engagement in the gig economy
in Kenya and South Africa, two middle-income
countries at the forefront of developments in
digitally mediated work in sub-Saharan Africa. It
aims to understand the impact of this engagement
on workers’ lives, considering the quality of
work on offer and its implications for workers’
management of paid work and unpaid care and
domestic work. Our novel research methods in
South Africa include a longitudinal survey of
gig workers combined with analysis of platform
data. In both countries, our findings are based on
interviews with workers and other key informants....
... Feminist scholarship points to the need to understand the reasons and conditions under which households come to be headed by women in order to understand the nature of vulnerability (Chant, 2015). These could range from the traditional reasons of male migration, non-marriage or marital breakdown (Posel, 2001) to more contemporary issues of premature HIV/AIDS related deaths (primarily in Africa) (Schatz, Madhavan, & Williams, 2011), each with different implications for vulnerability. In South Africa, for instance, households headed by women who had been through a separation or divorce were worse off when compared to households where the male member had died (Flatø et al., 2017). ...
Semi-arid regions across Africa and Asia are characterized by rapidly changing biophysical regimes, structural vulnerabilities, and increasing livelihood precarity. Gender, class, and caste/ethnic identities and relationships, and the specific social, economic and political power, roles and responsibilities they entail, shape the choices and decisions open to individuals and households in managing the risks they face. Unpacking the multiple, intersecting inequalities confronting rural populations in these climate hotspots is therefore vital to understand how risk can be managed in a way that supports effective, inclusive, and sustainable local adaptation. Drawing on empirical evidence from six countries, generated through a mixed methods approach, we examine how changes in household dynamics, structure, and aspirations, shape risk management with implications for household well-being, adaptive capacity, and ultimately sustainable development. The ability of individuals within households, differentiated by age, marital status , or education, to manipulate the very structure of the household and the material and social resources it offers, differentiates risk management strategies such as livelihood diversification, migration, changing agricultural practices and leveraging social support. Our evidence suggests that while greater risks can drive conflictive behavior within households, with women often reporting lower subjective wellbeing, new forms of cooperative behavior are also emerging, especially in peri-urban spaces. Through this study, we identify entry points into enabling sustainable and inclusive adaptation behavior, emphasizing that interventions should work for both women and men by challenging inequitable social and gender norms and renegotiating the domains of work and cooperation to maintain overall household wellbeing.
... Typically, men with multiple partners had better paying jobs, and were therefore more likely to afford additional partners and further expand their sexual networks while maintaining multi-local partnerships in comparison to those who do not migrate. In contrast, women, in poorly paying jobs, as is often the case with female migrant labour [17], send most of their earnings home i.e. two-thirds higher than men's [54], and thus may rely on multiple sexual partners or engage in transactional sex as an additional source of income, as noted in some qualitative studies [18,19]. Here we demonstrated that the finding for women did not necessarily conflict with that for men. ...
While human mobility has been implicated in fueling the HIV epidemic in South Africa, the link between migration and HIV has not been systematically reviewed and quantified. We conducted a systematic review of the role of migration in HIV risk acquisition and sexual behaviour based on 29 studies published between 2000 and 2017. Furthermore, we performed a meta-analysis of the association between migration and HIV risk acquisition in four of the studies that used HIV incidence as an outcome measure. The systematic review results show that HIV acquisition and risky sexual behavior were more prevalent among both male and female migrants compared to their non-migrant counterparts. The meta-analysis results demonstrate that migration was significantly associated with increased HIV acquisition risk (aOR = 1.69, 95% CI 1.33–2.14; I² = 35.0%). There is an urgent need for effective combination HIV prevention strategies (comprising biomedical, behavioral and structural interventions) that target migrant populations.
... However, while a result of this type is rarely observed in African countries, it is often observed in Asian and Latin American countries (Lucas, 1997). Posel and Casale (2003) and Posel (2001), in their studies on internal migration in South Africa, have emphasized that more and more women are increasing their participation in migratory flows of workers due to changes which appear in the functioning of the labor market and progress accomplished in terms of the education of girls. In terms of life as a couple, column (4) shows that youth living as a couple, those living in rural area, and those characterized by sociopolitical instability (armed ethnic conflicts, etc.) are more willing to migrate. ...
... One such change is the growing gender role transformation, a phenomenon too new to the Somali culture. Several researchers have explored how women send a larger proportion of their assets and income to their countries of origin (Bozzoli, 1983; see also Posel, 2001;Lindley, 2010), and the impact of such remittance in the home country. These scholars, however, ignore how the practice of remittance sending affects the social context of host environment including gender reations. ...
This article examines how remittance sending practices
transform Somali gender social relationships. The paper specifically gives voice
to the experiences of Somali families and illustrates the financial obligations
they maintain while residing in the UK. Although Somali migrants are not well off themselves; yet, they remain resilient. Drawing specifically on the
experiences of two remittance senders: Jama Warsame and Amina Macow, this
paper indicates the extra mile that Somali women strive to maintain remittance
flows, even if they could not afford it, creating a new silent conflict between
genders as related mainly to their traditionally perceived roles. The result
reveals that Somali women have risen to the surface as a new class of their own
in a patriarchal tradition that favours men more than women. This paper
provides insights into the importance of remittances in funding social support
for family members in home countries. It also illustrates the sacrifices made by
Somali women to ensure the continuation of remittances, particularly in the
context of transnational kinship ties. The results widen our understanding of
the changing Somali culture driven by this social group. It shows how the cross-border
remittance intervenes in traditionally male-dominated Somali kinship ties and elevates women as the new ―Dominant Social Class‖ in the constitution of Somali gender relations.
Keywords: change, dominant social class, ethnography, gender, transnational remittance
... Interestingly, skilled migrants, who have higher future expected incomes in the event of return migration, are less likely to be investing in origin assets due to a lower precautionary motive for saving, but they tend to send larger transfers to their origin families (O. U. Osili 2007) According to (Posel 2001)household makes decisions and allocates resources as a unit, and that all household members act out of altruism or as if they were altruists. However, the results in this study demonstrate that although migrants display altruistic behaviour towards his family members, the size of the remittance is more strongly influenced by the presence of some household members like older children or spouses, than others. ...
Volume IV, Issue 1 published in 2017
... Germenji, Beka & Sarris 2001). Nevertheless, there is also evidence which states that women remit more frequently (Posel 2001) and a larger proportion of their wage compared to men (Osaki 2003). So far, no studies have compared the differences in gender with regards to the likelihood of starting and terminating sending remittances. ...
Background: The increased amount and diversification of migration flows to Europe are shaping new contexts forthe study of determinants of remittance-sending. Senegalese migration in Spain is one important case,because has increased its presence among other groups in the country and has different characteristics(e.g. younger age structure) compared to Senegalese migrants in Europe. This paper addresses aresearch challenge which can be framed in the three following aspects. First, it analyzes the migrant’sremittance behavior of a particular group of migrants in a specific national context. Second, itacknowledges remittances as transnational practices determined by factors related to incorporationinto host society and ties at origin. Thirdly, the paper provides a longitudinal approach which looks atmigration histories and changes in remittance-sending over time.
Objective: The main objective of this paper consists on disentangling the way in which migrant’s remittancebehavior is affected by changes, over time, in individual characteristics (e.g. gender, education),economic integration, (e.g. employment status), and their ties at origin (e.g. family reunification).Thus, there are two research questions to be answered, namely: how are the trajectories of migrantremittances deployed since their arrival into Europe? And, how are these trajectories affected byindividual and family characteristics, as well as economic integration over time?
Methodology: The paper is based on retrospective data from the Migration between Africa and Europe (MAFE) andthe Migrations Between Senegal and Spain (MESE) projects. The analysis of determinants ofremittance-sending is divided in two parts. First, a multivariate logistic regression which analyzes theodds of sending remittances (or logit) at any year since arrival into Europe is carried out. Secondly,event history analysis is used to explore the risk of initiating remittance-sending for the first time andthe risk of remittance-sending termination, respectively. In particular, a discrete-time logistic model isperformed to analyze these two processes.
Results: Results indicate that despite having arrived relatively recently to Europe, lower educationalattainments and less access to the labour market, compared to other important destinations (e.g.France, Italy), the great majority of Senegalese migrants in Spain start sending remittances duringtheir first years of arrival. Once initiated, international money transfers are kept over time, as morethan two thirds of remitters maintain this economic flow over their stay. In this sense, empiricalevidence of this paper confirms remittances as an important aspect in South-North migration flows,both in terms of the proportion of migrants sending remittances and as a sustained transnationaleconomic practice.
... A possible reason for such results in the South African context could be that social grants, such as the Child Support Grant, could crowd out remittances. There is evidence from South Africa to suggest that other sources of income of the receiving household, and particularly the receipt of social pensions, crowd out remittance transfers (Jensen 2003;Posel 2001). ...
... As households transition from lower to higher income levels this may compromise food security and resilience to socio-economic upheaval. In South Africa-like in most developing countries-areas where well-being is generally low are mainly rural communities in which some proportion of household income is made up of remittances from household members working in urban centres as labour migrants [55][56][57]. Increases in household income through remittances may be relatively small compared to incomes in wealthy urban centres, but they may be large enough for rural households to transition into low ecosystem service use dynamics, abandoning local small-scale agriculture in the process, particularly if the remaining rural household members are elderly, sickly, or too young to farm [58,59]. If, however, the remittances cease due to unforeseen circumstances (e.g. the wage earner's death, illness, or job loss) the household is left with a much reduced income and no safety net in the form of small-scale subsistence farming [60]. ...
We take a social-ecological systems perspective to investigate the linkages between ecosystem services and human well-being in South Africa. A recent paper identified different types of social-ecological systems in the country, based on distinct bundles of ecosystem service use. These system types were found to represent increasingly weak direct feedbacks between nature and people, from rural “green-loop” communities to urban “red-loop” societies. Here we construct human well-being bundles and explore whether the well-being bundles can be used to identify the same social-ecological system types that were identified using bundles of ecosystem service use. Based on national census data, we found three distinct well-being bundle types that are mainly characterized by differences in income, unemployment and property ownership. The distribution of these well-being bundles approximates the distribution of ecosystem service use bundles to a substantial degree: High levels of income and education generally coincided with areas characterised by low levels of direct ecosystem service use (or red-loop systems), while the majority of low well-being areas coincided with medium and high levels of direct ecosystem service use (or transition and green-loop systems). However, our results indicate that transformations from green-loop to red-loop systems do not always entail an immediate improvement in well-being, which we suggest may be due to a time lag between changes in the different system components. Using human well-being bundles as an indicator of social-ecological dynamics may be useful in other contexts since it is based on socio-economic data commonly collected by governments, and provides important insights into the connections between ecosystem services and human well-being at policy-relevant sub-national scales.
... This is in line with other rural municipalities female headed household percentages like Umzinyathi (59%) and Sisonke (55%) but high compared to an urban municipality like Thekwini (40%) that includes the larger Durban metropolitan area (StatsSA., 2011). The relatively low number of households headed by males has been attributed to migration to urban areas in search of employment opportunities (Posel, 2001) and the effect of high HIV rates. This has left a large percentage of households headed by elderly with little formal education. ...
Genetically modified (GM) crop technologies have made great strides since its first introduction in 1996. Although there is an extensive and growing body of literature on the economic impact of the adoption of GM crops in both developing and developed economies, there is only scant evidence that the technology has had any specific and distinguishable impact among female and male farmers. In economies where female farmers and female household members have a significant and often differentiated role in agriculture production, it is crucial to be able to answer this question. This paper presents quantitative and qualitative results from a study of the gender-specific adoption and performance effects of insect resistant (Bt) and herbicide-tolerant (HT) maize produced by smallholder farmers in the Kwa Zulu Natal province in South Africa. The findings indicate that women farmers value the labor-saving benefit of HT maize alongside the stacked varieties which offer both insect control and labor saving. Higher yields are the main reason behind male adoption, while female farmers tend to favor other aspects like taste, quality, and the ease of farming herbicide-tolerant (HT) crops.Women farmers (and also children) saved significant time because less weeding is required, an activity that has traditionally been the responsibility of female farmers. The newer stacked varieties were preferred by both male and female farmers and seemed to be in high demand by both groups. However, lack of GM seed availability in the region and poor market access were possible limitations to the adoption and spread of the technology.
... Father absence among blacks occurs not only from paternal desertion or death but also because of long-term migration for wage labor. These men may have been involved with their families from a distance-for example, by sending home remittances and visiting on holidays-even if they did not reside regularly with their children (Bowles and Posel 2005;Posel 2001). These financial remittances can have powerful positive effects on children; for example, remittances are associated with increased school enrollment for children in recipient households (Lu and Treiman 2011). ...
The hypothesis that father absence during childhood, as well as other forms of childhood psychosocial stress, might influence the timing of sexual maturity and adult reproductive behaviors has been the focus of considerable research. However, the majority of studies that have examined this prediction have used samples of women of European descent living in industrialized, low-fertility nations. This paper tests the father-absence hypothesis using the Cape Area Panel Study (CAPS), which samples young adults in Cape Town, South Africa. The sample contains multiple racial groups (blacks, coloureds [mixed race], and whites) and includes both males and females. Dependent variables include age at menarche, age at first sexual intercourse, and age at first pregnancy. Childhood stress is measured by father absence by age six (either never lived with father or lived with father some but not all years) and an index of childhood exposure to violence (measuring threatened or actual verbal or physical abuse). The hypothesis received no support for effect on age at menarche but was supported for age at first sex and first pregnancy. The model showed stronger support for coloureds and whites than blacks and had no predictive power at all for black males.
... Possible reasons for the fall in the significance of migrant residents in predicting household incomes over the period, may be: a crowding out of remittance incomes by the increase in social grant spending (cf. Posel, 2001b;Jensen, 2003;Ranchhod, 2009;Leibbrandt et al, 2010); or, affordability and risk in the face of rising unemployment and greater labour market insecurity (cf. Sharp, 2001;Sporton et al, 1999;Posel and Casale, 2006); or, a greater permanent settling of migrants and a weakening of ties between migrants and their households of origin (cf. ...
The growth of the middle class is positively associated with many goals of development. Studies from several countries suggest that a sizable middle class may help to promote political stability, foster human capital accumulation, encourage savings and entrepreneurship, and ultimately achieve higher levels of economic growth.
In this thesis, two definitions of the middle class in South Africa are evaluated based upon two broad approaches adopted in the international economics literature: a middle class defined around the median of the per capita household income distribution, and a middle class defined by an absolute threshold of middle-class affluence. The study shows that there is very little overlap between these two definitions, a finding which reflects high levels of poverty and inequality in South Africa. Nevertheless both definitions warrant further exploration, as they offer different insights into the nature of development in South Africa.
The affluent middle class draws attention to those with a standard of living associated with relative economic prosperity (defined by total after-tax household income of R1,400 – R10,000 per capita per month in 2008 prices). The racial composition of the affluent middle class in South Africa switched from majority White to majority African between 1993 and 2008. However, growth in the total size of the affluent middle class was slow, driven by declines in the number of middle-class Whites. An econometric assessment of the predictors of affluence highlights the continued importance of race and labour market status in predicting household incomes. A decomposition analysis suggests that the driving force behind changes (and continued differences) in African and White levels of affluence are real differences in the levels of endowments, rather than differences in the returns to endowments.
The second definition of the middle class, as the middle-income strata, identifies the socio-economic status of the ‘average’ South African (defined by 50% - 150% of the median per capita household income). Per capita income levels about the median are very low, bordering on poverty. Between 1993 and 2008, income growth for the middle strata was small compared to significantly higher income growth amongst the poor (from a large expansion in social grants) and the rich (through economic growth). Furthermore, the proportion of total income accruing to the middle strata contracted over the period, evidence of a ‘middle-class squeeze’. Non-income based measures of welfare however reveal more progress for the middle-income strata over the period.
... In the classical economic view of the household as a unitary entity, resources are imagined to be distributed to maximise the welfare of all its inhabitants. This view of the household as has been challenged: " household relations and allocations are not governed by altruism alone and […] power in the household is not always benevolent " (Posel, 2001, p.168). Household members' seldom have entirely the same interests, and infrequently preside over equal amounts of power and authority. ...
... While there has been plenty of research on migration and remittances in South Africa (Cross 2003;Carter and May 1999;Posel 2001;Posel 2010;Posel and Casale 2006), few studies have looked at the geographical link with poverty. ...
... Quartey (2006a) Similarly, Tharmalingam (2011) maintains that Tamilis and Somalis living in Norway remit a lot of money to their families back home which largely improve the living conditions of their families. Posel (2001) study also point to the fact intra-migrants in South African remitted to support their families. Remittances from migrant workers play a significant role in keeping the economy of Bangladesh vibrant adding around six per cent to the country's GDP and helping to maintain the balance of payments (Ullah, 2011). ...
The main push factor for migration from rural communities is lack of employment opportunities for inhabitants who had high level of educational. When they migrate, they remit back to their families at communities they migrated from. Remittances play important role in rural development, and the study using Tutu in Ghana as a case study found out that as a result of money remitted to residents in the community, the study participants acquired farm lands, bought vehicles and built houses which they would not have had without remittances. More wives and mothers than other persons received large portions of the remittances. Those who remitted home maintained that in addition to remitting money to their families, they were also willing to contribute to community development including construction of schools, churches and community centre, and also pay school fees to the brilliant but needy students. Thus, they were willing to help develop the entire community.
... The increase in the coverage and the value of the social pension, paid to all ageand means-qualified individuals, may also have reduced the (perceived) need for migrants to remit income (Jensen 2003;Posel 2001). ...
... We control for gender by including a dummy variable representing women. The historical male bias in labour migration, labour market participation and earnings has resulted in empirical studies indicating that men remit more, and more often, than women (Agarwal and Horowitz 2002;Carling 2008a;Funkhouser 1995;Holst and Schrooten 2006) There is evidence, however, that women in some cases remit more frequently (Osaki 2003) or a greater proportion of their income (Posel 2001) than men. ...
This article explores the relationship between transnationalism and integration by examining the determinants of remittance-sending practices. We base our analysis on the premise that remittance-sending is shaped by a combination of the capacity and the desire of migrants to remit. The capacity to remit depends on access to funds that can be remitted, be it through wages, other income or savings. The desire to remit determines how remittance-sending is prioritised in relation to alternative expenditures. We assume that capacity is shaped by circumstances in the country of residence while desire depends on attachment and commitments in both the country of residence and the country of origin. Our analysis is based on survey data on immigrants in Norway (N=3,053). We find that economic integration is important for remittance-sending, and point to different mechanisms through which this effect could operate. Migrants' socio-cultural integration, however, appears not to have significant effects on remittance-sending. Our approach and results illustrate how different aspects of integration can have divergent impacts on transnationalism.
South Africa underwent dramatic political and social changes since 1991. This study documents changes in household size and structure from 1991 to 2022 using population census data. The average household size declined from 4.9 to 3.5 persons; the proportion of female-headed households increased from 30 to 50%; the proportion of single person households increased from 10 to 25%. These changes were found in all social strata, by residence status, by population group (race), and by province. They were associated with major changes: the dismantling of Apartheid, economic development and restructuration, rising unemployment, fertility decline, decline in marriage rates, new housing arrangements, and the HIV/AIDS crisis. In addition, a new wave of freedom from traditional structures seems to explain the outstanding development of people living alone, especially among young men.
This paper examines how gender dynamics in different patriarchal societies shape remitting behaviour in sub‐Saharan Africa. Data come from surveys conducted in Burkina Faso, Kenya, Uganda and Senegal. Results show that immediate family members, migrants with high earning potential and household with most financial need are more likely to send or receive remittances and, on average, send or receive more remittances than contrasting migrants or households. Gender dynamics show that remitters are more likely to be married individuals, particularly men, which demonstrate the importance of conjugal family responsibility in remitting behaviour. Consequently, the bulk of evidence suggests altruism as the primary motive behind remittances, although results also point to insurance as a motivation. However, the altruistic behaviour seems to be driven by the responsibility to remit rather than mere concern for the non‐migrating household members. This remitting pattern is much stronger in societies with high gender inequality than not.
The COVID-19 pandemic presents a particular challenge to countries with high levels of labour market informality. Informal workers and their households are especially vulnerable to the negative economic consequences of the pandemic and associated lockdown measures, while the very fact of their informality makes it difficult for governments to quickly provide targeted economic relief. Using South Africa as a case study, we examine how an established social assistance system – not originally designed to support informal workers – can be re-purposed to provide emergency relief to these workers and their households. We examine how expansions of this system on the intensive margin (increasing the value of existing social grants) and extensive margin (introducing a new feasibly-implemented grant) can be used to mitigate this COVID-19-associated poverty. We compare the efficacy of the different policies by using pre-pandemic nationally representative household survey data to project how a negative shock to informal incomes can be mitigated by the different social grant measures, with a particular emphasis on poverty impacts. We find that an intensive-margin expansion of the existing Child Support Grant is complementary to the extensive-margin introduction of a new Special COVID-19 Grant, and that this combined policy intervention performs best out of the options considered. However conclusions as to this “optimal policy” are not simple technical determinations. We show that these conclusions are in fact sensitive to both unavoidable technical assumptions about how resources are consumed and shared within the household, as well as to normative value judgments about which populations to prioritise and how to value poverty reduction spillovers amongst the non-targeted group. While our approach helps identify a range of sensible policy approaches, there is no escaping the limits to our knowledge or the issue of normative goals – a finding likely applicable to a broad range of empirical policy analyses.
This paper examines how low-middle-income, employed black South African women in multigenerational households are key providers and face numerous demands for economic and practical support from a wide range of dependents. It argues that although women’s role in financially supporting families is not a new phenomenon, the co-existence of high levels of care and the changing socio-economic context, including the welfare system, low marriage rates, and higher levels of female employment, has created new conditions for caregiving responsibilities in multigenerational households. The paper fills a theoretical gap in the understanding of the hidden abode of reproduction and the full array of women’s responsibilities in financing household social reproduction.
This chapter investigates the determinants of international remittance flow into the Kerala economy. It explores the influence of socio-demographic and migration-specific characteristics of the migrant and the migrant-sending (remittance receiving) households on the amount of remittance transfers. Using data from the 2011 Kerala Migration Survey, we employed Heckman selection correction model and Tobit model for the analysis. The results suggest that the migrant’s individual characters have a strong influence in the remittance-sending behaviour while the characteristics of the remittance-receiving household have a weaker influence. The migration-specific characteristics—the duration of migration, destination country and presence of dependents abroad—significantly affect the amount of remittance sent.
South Africa continues to experience high rates of rural–urban migration. Despite long-term residence in urban areas, many migrants do not consider the city to be home. This article presents a multi-sited study of Xhosa-speaking migrants who journey between Centane in the former Transkei homeland and Cape Town. The study aimed to explore the relationship that migrants have with their family home (ekhayeni). We interpret migrants’ narratives of life in the city and returning home in terms of processes of ‘place attachment’ (sensory, narrative, historical, spiritual, ideological, commodifying and material dependence) and factors that influence ‘place belonging’ (autobiographical, relational, cultural, economic and legal). We found that the landscape of home remains central to migrants’ cultural identity, belonging and well-being. Childhood experiences in nature and activities that continue to take rural inhabitants into these landscapes remain key to this relationship. Our case material contributes to understanding people’s motivation for ongoing visits to and investment in the rural areas, notably the emotional and spiritual dimensions of home and belonging, and the sensory and spiritual attachment to the natural environment. This complements and extends other recent work on rural–urban migration, which has focused on the rural areas as sites of asserting citizenship, social change and changing forms of investment that are to a large extent driven by the lack of opportunity to do so meaningfully in the informal settlements migrants inhabit in the city.
Remittances play an increasingly large role in the economies of many countries. They are more than just mere financial transactions. As studies have shown, in the era of globalization, as a result of the enhanced human mobility, the outmigration of a country’s citizens to various foreign countries has intensified, as a result of which the inward flow of money to the household economy in the urban, semi-urban and the rural areas appears to have increased. The quantum and magnitude of such remittances sent by the migrant workers to their families in the home country are found to be affected by a vast number of characteristics specific to the migrants and their families back home. An attempt has been made through this article to discern the determinants of the remittance levels and the variables that affect the size of the remittance in the surveyed families of the two villages with the help of the multiple regression model.
Male out-migration from rural to urban areas has amplified worldwide in the face of economic globalisation. Migration literature for long has engaged with the life of migrants at the destination and their support for the left-behind families in the form of remittances. Explicit scholastic undertaking for the left-behind women and their life experiences has started to receive attention only recently. We take stock of the existing literature to examine this social process and debate it within a women empowerment-disempowerment framework. Following a systematic review of the ‘migration left-behind nexus’ literature, we find a clear trend of transformation in the gender role of women everywhere, especially in the form of ‘feminisation of agriculture’. This process is largely moderated by the nature and amount of remittances received at source. The resultant well-being and empowerment of women is shaped by the socio-cultural context within which migration takes place. Both positive and/or negative outcomes for left-behind women are recorded in the literature, although its choice as a conscious decision and its subsequent permanence in a society is debatable. We expect a deeper engagement of future research that takes up the migration-led women empowerment issue within the context of the general social transformation process.
Whilst the notion of migration in the Southern African region underscores the permeability of borders, its historiography has been compartmentalised in academic circles and, as a result, has failed to capture the complexity of human mobility in its various forms. Here, we must consider the often neglected relations between multiple communities (e.g. different migrant groups) in the process of (un)settlement but also bear in mind that people co-exist and interact with a myriad of other elements themselves in circulation, from objects and merchandise to non-human actors. Building on these premises, this introduction introduces important themes of the vestiges of migration in post-independence Southern Africa. Drawing on numerous debates around the political economy of migration as crisis, identity formations, citizen and belonging, this introduction addresses how critical border-making and border-crossing processes have been, and still are, shaping trajectories of movements in Southern Africa.
Since the dawn of humanity, people have migrated, seeking new opportunities or fleeing from economic, social or political distress. Not all migrants, however, possess official documentation, nor do they possess the South African Identity Document (ID) that gives them access to basic social services, housing or land. Consequently, such ‘illegal’ immigrants are forced to rent backyard shacks or set up shanties in informal settlements, such as those in Grasland, Mangaung (Bloemfontein). The perceived ‘illegality’ of migrants generates contestations around the right to ‘belong’, expressed as the right to access to basic services. This chapter demonstrates how belonging is contested in Mangaung, through the application of the criteria of ‘belonging’, but also that the construction of those criteria produces other forms of contested belonging. The chapter also asks what alternative interpretations of belonging or merit should be applied and how? This chapter therefore situates social justice—defined in terms of values, processes and practices for empowerment to disallow oneself to be oppressed, the promotion of values that disincline one to oppress others and practices that enable equality and justice—as a useful concept or way to explain the contestation of belonging as lived experiences for the Lesotho immigrants (Basotho) in Grasland.
This chapter discusses the care and protection of second-generation exiles within kinship relations, the broader South African exile “family” and ANC residential facilities for children. Children were exposed to different social constructions of childhood as they participated in the multiple domains of everyday life. The liminality of exile created opportunities for them as agents to contest gendered and generational social constructions; and to raise questions about fairness and justice particularly in relation to siblings left behind, absent parents, household responsibilities, emotional support, generational respect, discipline and maltreatment. Adults and children negotiated their position and power in relation to each other, as they interpreted historical socio-cultural values of respect, reciprocity and empathy, and the dominant discourse of sacrifice.
Fathers have an important role to play in childcare and when they are not involved, the children, mothers and fathers themselves are the poorer for it. Yet in many contexts we do not actually know either the extent or nature of father involvement. This article reports on a study that drew on data from a randomised survey of 18–49-year-old men in South Africa to explore levels of childcare participation and to analyse which particular activities men are involved in. The study showed that more than half of fathers take their parental responsibilities seriously. Over 80%, for example, help their children with school homework. A smaller majority (54%) of fathers talk to their children about personal matters and wash their clothes. Despite resource scarcity due to poverty, many seek to be present in their children’s lives. But this is not true for all men. Men who have good communication with their wives; who perceive their own fathers as kind; and who are generally more egalitarian in their gender attitudes are more likely to be caring fathers. Conversely, fathers who are violent towards women; who abuse alcohol; and who do not have gender equitable views are least likely to care for their children.
Mainstream welfare-state literature identifies four welfare-state regimes: liberal, social democratic, corporatist and state-socialist. More recently, a fifth category has emerged: the developmental welfare state. As with research on Esping-Andersen’s categorization of ‘three worlds of welfare capitalism’, early research on developmental social policy is revealing enormous variants within this category as well (Mkandawire 2004). Feminist studies of developmental welfare are poorly developed, and thus far we have very few analyses of how gender is conceptualized. Yet, like other welfare state regimes, developmental states are regulatory in nature: they ascribe meaning to the social category of gender and create a normative framework within which needs are adjudicated and considered to be worthy of attention. While welfare states in the north traditionally redefined the relationship between work and family, developmental states operating in the context of informalization of labour markets redraw the boundaries between and responsibilities of state, community, families and individuals. Analyses of developmental states have focused on the types of need that ought to be prioritized, and the extent to which these needs could be satisfied within a range of fiscal and global constraints. However, there has been less attention to the ways in which different types of developmental states interpret needs and particularly to the gendered nature of needs interpretation.
In this paper a working definition of lone motherhood in the South African context is presented. Whilst rejecting any assumption that lone motherhood is necessarily experienced as an identity, it is argued that the category of lone motherhood has analytical value as it exposes the circumstances faced by women who care for children without a partner or spouse present. The working definition is operationalised using household survey data and certain methodological challenges are discussed. A profile of lone mothers is presented and it is demonstrated that lone mothers living with children are more deprived than women who additionally live with a partner or spouse. This raises several policy imperatives including the need for broader debates about valuing unpaid care work and achieving comprehensive social security, particularly within the hostile climate of widespread poverty and unemployment.
The distribution of incomes in South Africa in 2004, ten years after the transition to democracy, was probably more unequal than it had been under apartheid. In this book, Jeremy Seekings and Nicoli Nattrass explain why this is so, offering a detailed and comprehensive analysis of inequality in South Africa from the midtwentieth century to the early twenty-first century. They show that the basis of inequality shifted in the last decades of the twentieth century from race to class. Formal deracialization of public policy did not reduce the actual disadvantages experienced by the poor nor the advantages of the rich. The fundamental continuity in patterns of advantage and disadvantage resulted from underlying continuities in public policy, or what Seekings and Nattrass call the "distributional regime." The post-apartheid distributional regime continues to divide South Africans into insiders and outsiders. The insiders, now increasingly multiracial, enjoy good access to well-paid, skilled jobs; the outsiders lack skills and employment.
* This article is based on research conducted as part on the UNRISD Program on Gender and Social Policy in Developing Countries. A version of this paper will appear in Shahra Razavi and Shireen Hassim, eds., Gender and Social Policy in Developing Countries (2006). I would like to thank Beth Goldblatt and Francie Lund for helpful comments on earlier versions of the paper.
1. For an extensive discussion of these political processes, see Hassim (2002).
2. For a more extensive discussion of the women’s movement, see Hassim (2004).
3. The emphasis on the “primary caregiver” rather than the mother or even guardian was a small but important shift. As Sainsbury and others have shown, the basis of welfare entitlements is a crucial aspect of welfare states. Entitlements that privilege the head of household tend to undermine women’s independent access to benefits. On the other hand, emphasis on motherhood can equally narrow women’s access to benefits by imposing moral regulation on women. In the South African case, the emphasis on the primaiy caregiver recognizes the work of childcare regardless of who performs it-an important factor in a context in which care giving is the responsibility of aunts and grandparents. See Sainsbury (1996). See also Fraser and Gordon (1994).
4. Paradoxically, the Democratic Party, which in many respects can be seen as the party of business, has supported the introduction of BIG.
A work that started life as a background research study for the Committee of Inquiry into Comprehensive Social Security in South Africa Unless they specifically appear in the published Report of the Committee of Inquiry, views expressed in this work are my own. They are not to be regarded as having been endorsed by the Committee. This work is in draft form. It may be cited, but on the understanding that revision of it is still in progress. The points at which it is incomplete are identified by the instruction 'FIX'. The concluding chapter, in particular, needs a large amount of work. It is unlikely that the major findings will change much – details, however, could undergo some revision. As and when it is modified, a revised version will be posted on the website www.nu.ac.za\csds. Previous versions that have appeared on the website will be archived for reference purposes.
We use longitudinal data from the National Income Dynamics Study to document the extent of recent short-term residential and household compositional change in South Africa. We analyse the demographic correlates of these transitions, including population group, age, urban/rural status, and income. We examine educational and labour-market transitions among movers and the prevalence of the four major types of compositional change – births, addition of joiners, deaths, and loss of leavers. We find that short-term household change is prevalent in South Africa. During a two-year period from 2008 to 2010, 10.5% of South Africans moved residence and 61.3% experienced change in household composition. We find that moving is more common among blacks and whites, very young children, young adults, urban individuals, and those with higher incomes. Among non-movers, compositional change is more likely for blacks and coloureds, young adults and children, females, urban individuals, and individuals with lower incomes.
Return migration to South Africa is a relatively unexplored and new phenomenon, with potential impact on South Africa's development. Using data from an online survey of approximately 400 South African participants from around the world, this paper investigates the determinants of return migration by comparing the effect of explicitly stated reasons with socio-demographic variables (implicit factors). Firstly, we conduct an exploratory factor analysis to reduce the items related to the explicit reasons. Two factors are retained which provide a sensible classification of 'push' and 'pull' factors in the South African context. Along with socio-demographic variables, these factors are then used in multinomial logistic regression models to investigate how each variable impacts the odds of being a returnee, planner or stayer. We find that traditionally salient demographic variables, such as age, gender and educational attainment, lack significant explanatory power, which we attribute to the unique nature of the South African diaspora. South African property ownership, loss of South African citizenship and whether or not the respondent's partner main language is Afrikaans yielded statistically significant results. Notably, higher stated preferences to return to South Africa based on 'pull' factors (i.e. friends, family) increase the odds of being a returnee or planner versus a stayer. Also, a greater stated preference to return to South Africa based on 'push' factors (i.e. politics, safety, racial issues) increases the odds of being a returnee versus a stayer. Our findings suggest that there are meaningful differences between the migration decision mechanisms of returnees, planners and stayers.
Highlighting the problems posed by a "unitary" conceptualization of the household, a number of economists have in recent years proposed alternative models. These models, especially those embodying the bargaining approach, provide a useful framework for analyzing gender relations and throw some light on how gender asymmetries are constructed and contested. At the same time, the models have paid inadequate or no attention to some critical aspects of intrahousehold gender dynamics, such as: what factors (especially qualitative ones) affect bargaining power? What is the role of social norms and social perceptions in the bargaining process and how might these factors themselves be bargained over? Are women less motivated than men by self-interest and might this affect bargaining outcomes? Most discussions on bargaining also say little about gender relations beyond the household, and about the links between extrahousehold and intrahousehold bargaining power. This paper spells out the nature ...
This final chapter draws together the principal findings on gender and migration from the individual case studies, and highlights key points of similarity and divergence. The discussion then moves on to evaluate the usefulness of current theoretical approaches to understanding gender-selective mobility in different parts of the developing world, to suggest directions for future study, and to pinpoint possible implications for policy. -Author
Evolution depuis une vingtaine d'annees des themes et des approches des recherches sur l'organisation sociale en Afrique. Etude detaillee de la signification de certains concepts-cles comme les concepts de groupe domestique, de lignage, de famille. Les nouvelles tendances de l'etude des macro-processus de l'organisation sociale. Revue de la litterature sur la stabilite matrimoniale et la polygynie comme exemple des possibilites de comprehension de problemes particuliers dans le contexte de processus historiques plus vastes.
This book is about the analysis of household survey data from developing countries and about how such data can be used to cast light on a range of policy issues. Much of the analysis works with household budget data, collected from income and expenditure surveys, though I shall occasionally address topics that require wider information. I shall use data from several different economies to illustrate the analysis, drawing examples of policy issues from economies as diverse as Cote d'Ivoire, India, Pakistan, South Africa, Taiwan (China), and Thailand. I shall be concerned with methodology as well as substance, and one of the aims of the book is to bring together the relevant statistical and econometric methods that are useful for building the bridge between data and policy.
How do altruistic links affect allocative behavior and wellbeing? Can the processes of transmission and probable acquisition of parental traits result in a stable equilibrium where all agents are altruists? Why do children furnish their parents with attention and care? Does the timing of the intergenerational transfer of the family's productive asset affect the recipient's incentive to acquire human capital? Why do migrants remit? Altruism and Beyond provides answers to these and related questions. In addition, it traces some of the market repercussions of the intrafamilial, intergenerational, and intragroup transfers and exchanges that it models.
The argument of this article is based on a close comparison of two Bantustan areas in South Africa: the Matatiele district in the Transkei and Qwaqwa in the Orange Free State. Such comparisons are rarely, if ever, attempted, but we contend that they are potentially very useful in illuminating the complexities of social relationships in South Africa's rural periphery. In this article we concentrate on gender relationships. All the Bantustans share certain characteristics that impinge on the nature of gender relationships. Most significant are the overwhelming dependence of households on income derived from remittances, and the fact that migrant‐contract employment opportunities are mainly restricted to men. But Bantustan areas also differ with regard to the availability of residual productive resources (such as arable and pasture land), their residents’ past involvement in wage‐labour and experiences of forced relocation, and in the forms of material differentiation amongst residents. This article explores the significance of such differences in the cases of Matatiele and Qwaqwa. We show that men's domination and women's responses need to be analysed in the context of local historical and other factors as well as in terms of the macro‐level processes of capitalist expansion. We thus discuss the historical experiences of contemporary residents of our two selected Bantustan areas, as regards their gender relationships, as well as how these are played out in the present circumstances. The article concludes by briefly drawing some parallels between gender relationships in the Bantustans and elsewhere in the underdeveloped world.
Monetary transfers between relatives may be motivated by altruism, or they may represent payments for services rendered. Data from a large 1988 household survey are used to test these hypotheses and to study the size and direction of transfers in rural China. The analysis suggests that altruism alone cannot explain the observed transfers and that exchange may be involved. Most of the money flows appear to be transfers from adult children to elderly parents and remittances from migrants. Child care is likely to be one of the main services that parents render to adult children in exchange for money.
The main theme of this 1972 book, the determination of wages, is introduced by a historical analysis of the labour market in the mines and an examination of the economics and financial structure of the gold mining industry. Dr Wilson believes that successive South African governments used the gold mining industry when planning labour policies, so that the mines’ labour strategy exerted a profound influence on the social and economic structure of South Africa. The author shows how collusion between the mining groups enabled them to hold down black wages so effectively that in real terms African miners’ wages were likely lower at the time of this book’s publication than they were in 1911. The strong bargaining position occupied by white miners allowed them to be the sole beneficiaries of increases in productivity, so that the distribution of income would become more unequal over time.
Data from Kenya and Malawi suggest that food security and preschooler nutritional status are influenced by the interaction of income and gender of the head of household rather than simply one or the other. Not only is household food security influenced by total household income but the proportion of income controlled by women has a positive and significant influence on household caloric intake. Households were disaggregated not simply in male- and female-headed households but female-headed households were further disaggregated into de jure (legal head of household is a woman) and de facto female-headed households (male head of household is absent more than 50% of the time). In both Kenya and Malawi, the de facto female-headed households had the lowest income; despite this low income, preschoolers' nutritional status was significantly better than in the higher income male-headed and de jure female-headed households. The ability to improve nutritional status in a low-income environment in the de facto female-headed households is related to a combination of child feeding practices and other nurturing behavior. The findings suggest that interventions that exploit incentives to invest in children can provide more immediate improvements in child health and nutrition where sustained income growth is possible only in the long term.
The article attempts to develop a general theory of the allocation of time in non-work activities. It sets out a basic theoretical analysis of choice that includes the cost of time on the same footing as the cost of market goods and treats various empirical implications of the theory. These include a new approach to changes in hours of work and leisure, the full integration of so-called productive consumption into economic analysis, a new analysis of the effect of income on the quantity and quality of commodities consumed, some suggestions on the measurement of productivity, an economic analysis of queues and a few others as well. The integration of production and consumption is at odds with the tendency for economists to separate them sharply, production occurring in firms and consumption in households. It should be pointed out, however, that in recent years economists increasingly recognize that a household is truly a small factory. It combines capital goods, raw materials and labor to clean, feed, procreate and otherwise produce useful commodities.
If household income is pooled and then allocated to maximize welfare then income under the control of mothers and fathers should have the same impact on demand. With survey data on family health and nutrition in Brazil, the equality of parental income effects is rejected. Unearned income in the hands of a mother has a bigger effect on her family's health than income under the control of a father; for child survival probabilities the effect is almost twenty times bigger. The common preference (or neoclassical) model of the household is rejected. If unearned income is measured with error and income is pooled then the ratio of maternal to paternal income effects should be the same; equality of the ratios cannot be rejected. There is also evidence for gender preference: mothers prefer to devote resources to improving the nutritional status of their daughters, fathers to sons.
Uses the recent theory of household economics to provide the analytical base, and to establish the link between the stagnation of African farming and the rapid development of modern market sectors in Southern African economies. The distinguishing feature of the approach is the incorporation of non-market factors within a neoclassical framework and the development of an analytical model of the African farm household. The non-market attributes of land and cattle under indigenous institutions are highlighted and incorporated into an empirical analysis which provides new perspectives on aggregate cropping matters, variations in technology adoption between households, the nature of rural-urban migration and the impact of rural development initiatives, research approaches aimed at increasing the production of small-scale African farming, and food prices and urban wage policy. Universal access to land results in specialization taking place within rather than between households. Where wage employment or other non-farm production opportunities exist, farm-households are often not solely or primarily farmers. However, even where most income is earned off the farm, households maintain a rural base for social and security reasons, and they can procure subsistence goods cheaply by non-market production. As a result, there is the inherent tendency for food production per person to decline.-from Author
In this article a theory of motivations to send remittances is described and tested with data from Botswana. Altruism is one of the motivations tested and found to be an insufficient explanation for remittances among migrants in Botswana. A refinement of the model stipulates a modified altruism or "enlightened self-interest." In this model the relationship between the migrant and family is tempered by an implicit understanding of mutual benefit. The household strategy may be to encourage some members to migrate as a means of spreading risk and sharing gains. The household strategy is similar to an insurance policy where migration is to places where market potential is high. The risks incurred might be high. The example is given of migration during a drought in Botswana. Migrant remittances were greater in households with more cattle or households with more to lose. Drought alone was not statistically related to remittances. Increases in remittances were related to increased levels of education. It is suggested that repayment was the motive for parents investment in migrants education. Migrants gains are identified as the potential for an inheritance the security of channeling investments through a trusted family member and security in having a home to return to. It is pointed out that the altruism and family remittances from urban migration were strategies that bridged the simple dynamic of either urban development or rural development impacting on family welfare. It is suggested that household models of economy adopt some measure to express the relationship of household wealth to remittances from urban migrants.
How to improve healthcare access for Chinese migrants? We show that the social network is a major key. It uses a 2006 dataset from a survey of rural migrant workers conducted in five cities amongst the most economically advanced. We use a fixed effect logit model and we control for the non-exogeneity of the health insurance. The empirical findings support the hypothesis of return to the hometown for migrant workers with deteriorated health. The residence registration system and the importance of family/relative support in the outcome of the treatment incent them to then leave the city. Besides the level of income, the social integration of migrant workers is such a decisive criteria of the access to healthcare. Politicies aiming at improving the latter should involve organisations working at the local level, such as the resident committees.
The focus of this paper is on the rural poor of south Asia and their struggle to cope with the seasonal risk of unemployment and the ensuing income risks. In the absence of formal credit or insurance markets the rural poor typically resort to, among other options, the following informal strategies to cope with seasonal income risks: (i) seasonal rural-to-urban migration, and (ii) mutual (ex-post) transfers between families of friends and relatives. Access to credit through a microfinance institution could also provide a competing source of insurance. The question raised in this paper is how the access to credit may affect the more traditional/time honoured means of risk coping, such as seasonal migration. Given that credit, i.e., a creditfinanced activity, is potentially a substitute for seasonal migration, it is reasonable to argue that easy access to credit (or high return on credit) will lower the incidence of migration. However, there also exists a potential complementarity between the two activities (if implemented jointly) in terms of gains due to diversification of income risks. That is, given that income from migration is not typically subject to the same shocks as income generated by a credit-financed activity, a joint adoption of both activities creates opportunities for diversification of risk in the family incomes portfolio. If the diversification gains are large enough then the adoption of both activities jointly will be preferred to adopting either of the activities individually. In that event, introduction of microfinance in rural societies may result in raising the incidence of migration. The joint adoption case for rural households is modelled using a choice theoretic framework, and exact conditions are derived for when joint adoption is preferable to adoption of a single project. The model of joint adoption is estimated by applying a Bivariate Probit regression model on a single cross-section of household survey data from rural Bangladesh. Our prel
This article evaluates the feminist and institutional dimensions of intra-household economics. A brief intellectual history of this emerging subfield of microeconomics argues that the weakness of the New Home Economics lies not only in its failure to deal with the individuals that make up the family, but also in its lack of recognition of systematic, gender- and age-based power relations which structure household resource allocation. A critical review of cooperative household bargaining models shows that while these effectively capture preference and externally-derived bargaining power heterogeneity among family members, they treat individuals symmetrically with respect to their ''voice'' (the right and ability to enter into the household bargaining process) and ''exit'' (the socially and economically constructed alternatives facing household members in the absence of a cooperative solution), and say little about the actual processes that lead to household resource allocation decisions. Noncooperative intra-household models, on the other hand, offer richer characterizations of household structures and processes, and can endogenously account for differences in power among family members. The final section proposes a research agenda emphasizing an interdisciplinary approach to both intrahousehold theory and empirical analysis.
A genetical mathematical model is described which allows for interactions between relatives on one another's fitness. Making use of Wright's Coefficient of Relationship as the measure of the proportion of replica genes in a relative, a quantity is found which incorporates the maximizing property of Darwinian fitness. This quantity is named “inclusive fitness”. Species following the model should tend to evolve behaviour such that each organism appears to be attempting to maximize its inclusive fitness. This implies a limited restraint on selfish competitive behaviour and possibility of limited self-sacrifices.
Special cases of the model are used to show (a) that selection in the social situations newly covered tends to be slower than classical selection, (b) how in populations of rather non-dispersive organisms the model may apply to genes affecting dispersion, and (c) how it may apply approximately to competition between relatives, for example, within sibships. Some artificialities of the model are discussed.
Grounds for thinking that the model described in the previous paper can be used to support general biological principles of social evolution are briefly discussed.Two principles are presented, the first concerning the evolution of social behaviour in general and the second the evolution of social discrimination. Some tentative evidence is given.More general application of the theory in biology is then discussed, particular attention being given to cases where the indicated interpretation differs from previous views and to cases which appear anomalous. A hypothesis is outlined concerning social evolution in the Hymenoptera; but the evidence that at present exists is found somewhat contrary on certain points. Other subjects considered include warning behaviour, the evolution of distasteful properties in insects, clones of cells and clones of zooids as contrasted with other types of colonies, the confinement of parental care to true offspring in birds and insects, fights, the behaviour of parasitoid insect larvae within a host, parental care in connection with monogyny and monandry and multi-ovulate ovaries in plants in connection with wind and insect pollination.
"In this paper we question the pioneering work of Todaro, which states that rural-to-urban labor migration in less developed countries (LDCs) is an individual response to a higher urban expected income. We demonstrate that rural-to-urban labor migration is perfectly rational even if urban expected income is lower than rural income. We achieve this under a set of fairly stringent conditions: an individual decision-making entity, a one-period planning horizon, and global risk aversion. We obtain the result that a small chance of reaping a high reward is sufficient to trigger rural-to-urban labor migration."
Although many governments in developing countries profess redistributive aims, and although standard efficiency arguments suggests that cash transfers are the best way of accomplishing such aims, direct cash transfers to the poor are rare. In this paper we examine a counter example, the "social pension" in South Africa, where large cash sums - about twice the median per capita income of African households - are paid to people qualified by age but irrespective of previous contributions.
The authors examine the social pension in South Africa, where large cash sums--about twice the median per capita income of African bouseholds--are paid to people qualified by age but irrespective of previous contributions. They present the history of the scheme and use a 1993 nationally representative survey to investigate the redistributive consequences of the transfers, documenting who receive the pensions, their levels of living, and those of their families. The authors also look at behavioral effects, particularly the effects of the cash receipts on the allocation of income to food, schooling, transfers, and savings.
This paper provides a critical review of the recent literature on households and economic development. Three related points are developed: (1) household activities can be analyzed in economic terms, particularly if these terms are broadly defined to encompass such factors as risk and uncertainty; (2) significant differences between the economic position of men, women, and children within the patriarchal household mean that it cannot be treated as an undifferentiated unit of analysis; (3) microeconomic analysis of the household must be situated within a larger structural analysis of gender and age based inequalities and their interaction with class structure and national position within the world capitalist system.
Subsistence Production and Households Budgets in Mahlabatini District, KwaZulu'. Development Studies Research Group Working Paper No
- M V Gandar
- N Bromberger
Gandar, M. V. and Bromberger, N. 1984. 'Subsistence Production and Households Budgets in Mahlabatini District, KwaZulu'. Development Studies Research Group Working Paper No. 11, University of Natal, South Africa.
The Analysis of Household Surveys. A Microeconometric Approach to Development Policy Downloaded byFather's Money, Mother's Money, and Parental Commitment: Guatemala and Nicaragua EnGENDERing Wealth and Well-Being
- M Daly
- M Wilson
- P L Engle
Daly. M. and Wilson, M. 1983. Sex, Evolution and Behaviour. Second Edition. California: Wadsworth Publishing Company. Deaton A. 1997. The Analysis of Household Surveys. A Microeconometric Approach to Development Policy. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. Downloaded by [University of Ulster Library] at 03:54 25 January 2015 184 How do Households Work? Engle, P. L. 1995. 'Father's Money, Mother's Money, and Parental Commitment: Guatemala and Nicaragua'. In R. L. Blumberg (Ed.) EnGENDERing Wealth and Well-Being. San Francisco: Westview Press, pp. 155-179.
‘Public Transfers, Private Transfers and the ‘Crowding Out’ Hypothesis: Theory and Evidence from South Africa
- R Jenson
Jenson, R. 1997. 'Public Transfers, Private Transfers and the 'Crowding Out' Hypothesis: Theory and Evidence from South Africa'. Mimeo, Department of Economics, Princeton University.
The Migrant Labour System: Changing Dynamics in Rural Survival The Political Economy of South Africa. Cape Town
- J May
May, J. 1990. 'The Migrant Labour System: Changing Dynamics in Rural Survival'. In N. Nattrass and E. Ardington (Eds.) The Political Economy of South Africa. Cape Town: Oxford University Press.
The Broad Picture: Health Status and Determinants
- D Bradshaw
Bradshaw, D. 1997. 'The Broad Picture: Health Status and Determinants'. In South African Health Review, Durban, South Africa: Durban, Health Systems Trust.
Housing as a Strategy for Urban-Rural Linkages in Botswana Changing Gender Relations in Southern Africa: Issues of Urban Life. Lesotho: The Institute of Southern African Studies and the National University of Lesotho
- A Larrson
Larrson, A. 1998. 'Housing as a Strategy for Urban-Rural Linkages in Botswana'. In A. Larsson, M. Mapetla, and A. Schlyter (Eds.) Changing Gender Relations in Southern Africa: Issues of Urban Life. Lesotho: The Institute of Southern African Studies and the National University of Lesotho, pp. 129-154.
Intra-family transfers and the household division of labor: a case study of migration and remittance behavior in South Africa
- D Posel
Posel, D. 1999. Intra-family transfers and the household division of labor: a case study of migration and remittance behavior in South Africa. PhD, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Questioning Rural LivelihoodsA Theory of the Allocation of Time
- E Ardington
- F Lund
Ardington, E. and Lund, F. 1996. 'Questioning Rural Livelihoods'. In M. Lipton, F. Ellis & M. Lipton (Eds.) Land, Labour and Livelihoods in Rural South Africa. Volume Two: KwaZulu-Natal and Northern Province. Durban, South Africa: Indicator Press. Becker, G. S. 1965. 'A Theory of the Allocation of Time'. Economic Journal, 175, 493-517.
A Treatise on the Family. Enlarged EditionLabour Migrancy and Rural Production: Pondoland c Black Villagers in an Industrial Society. Cape Town
- G S Becker
- W Beinart
Becker, G. S. 1993. A Treatise on the Family. Enlarged Edition. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Beinart, W. 1980. 'Labour Migrancy and Rural Production: Pondoland c.1900-1950'. In P. Mayer (Ed.) Black Villagers in an Industrial Society. Cape Town: Oxford University Press. Bozzoli, B. 1983. 'Marxism, Feminism and South African Studies'. Journal of Southern African Studies
Gender and the Development of the Migrant Labour System c.1850-1930: An Overview Women and Gender in Southern Africa to 1945. Cape Town
- C Walker
Walker, C. 1990. 'Gender and the Development of the Migrant Labour System c.1850-1930: An Overview'. In C. Walker (Ed.) Women and Gender in Southern Africa to 1945. Cape Town: David Philip Publishers, pp. 168-196.
‘Rural Proleterianisation and Intra-Household Transfers: Implications for Rural Livelihoods in South Africa
- D Flaherty
Flaherty, D. 1995. 'Rural Proleterianisation and Intra-Household Transfers: Implications for Rural Livelihoods in South Africa'. Mimeo, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Intra-family transfers and income-pooling: a study of remittances'. The South African Journal of Economics 69(3), forthcoming. Seccondi, G. 1997. 'Private Monetary Transfers in Rural China: Are Families Altruistic
- D Posel
Posel, D. 2001. 'Intra-family transfers and income-pooling: a study of remittances'. The South African Journal of Economics 69(3), forthcoming. Seccondi, G. 1997. 'Private Monetary Transfers in Rural China: Are Families Altruistic?' The Journal of Development Studies 33(4), 487-511.
Poverty and Development in a Rural Community in KwaZulu', Working Paper
- E Ardington
Ardington, E. 1984. 'Poverty and Development in a Rural Community in KwaZulu', Working Paper, No.9, Durban, South Africa: Development Studies Unit, University of Natal, Durban.