Estimating migration flows in Estimating migration flows in South AfricaSouth Africa

Statistics South AfricaDecember 2006

Introduction

• Difficult to measure migration inflows and outflows in South Africa

• The context of migration estimation– South Africa does not follow the UN recommendations

• Categories of migrants currently in UN recommendations may not all be appropriate situation.

• Operational implementation of recommendations may be challenging for South Africa

– Adoption of a paperless border control system before technical issues related to the integration of the IT system was completed

– With democracy, South Africa’s borders have become much more open to visitors and migrants especially with neighboring states such as Mozambique, Namibia and other SADC countries

– Increase in undocumented migration

Introduction (2)

• In South Africa, a distinction is made between documented and undocumented migrants

• South Africa has bilateral agreements with neighboring states that make it difficult to measure short or long term migrants between these countries e.g. Mozambique and Zimbabwe

• Information on actual duration of stay is not available

Introduction (3)

• In the past migration flows were determined by using the expiration dates of the permits issues to visitors

• This was also used to classify people into short and long-term migrants– There are several problems with this approach

• Migrants leaving before or after their permits have expired

• Changes in the migration category because intentions of migrants change

Current definitions of migration in South Africa

• Short-term migrations refer to visitors issues with business, short-term contract permits

• Long term migrants refer people being issued with work, study, permanent residence permits and family and reunification with family permits, and retired persons permits

Visitor arrivals and departures

• The overwhelming majority of arrivals and departures in South Africa are by air

• The main ports of entry and exit for visitors to South Africa are Johannesburg and Cape Town

• There had been an increase in arrivals in South Africa in recent times

• Data for visitor arrivals and departures include many categories for migrants and non-migrants

Fig 1a: Air arrivals by port of entry, South Africa, July 2006

OR Tambo84,8%

Durban0,3%

Cape Tow n14,3%

Other0,6%

N = 180 586

Fig 1b: Air departures by port of exit, South Africa, July 2006

OR Tambo86,8%

Durban0,3%

Cape Tow n12,1%

Other0,8%

Fig 1b: Air departures by port of exit, South Africa, July 2006

OR Tambo86,8%

Durban0,3%

Cape Tow n12,1%

Other0,8%

N = 144 568

Fig. 2b: Percentage change in number of overseas travellers arriving from leading source countries in July 2006 compared with July 2005

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35

Source country

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Fig. 2a: The number of overseas travellers arriving from leading source countries in July 2005 and July 2006

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10,000

15,000

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July-05 July-06

Fig. 3b: Percentage change in the number of travellers from mainland African countries arriving from leading source countries in July 2006 compared with

July 2005

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-10

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Source country

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Fig. 3a: The number of travellers from mainland African countries arriving from leading source countries in July 2005 and July 2006

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80,000

100,000

120,000

140,000

160,000

180,000Le

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July-05 July-06

Migration outflows from South Africa

• South Africa has abandoned the use of departure forms in 2004

• It is therefore not possible to estimate outflows of long or short term migration by South African nationals using border control data

• The only source (in South Africa) of outflows of long- term migrants by South Africans is the Network of Skills Abroad (SANSA) database– This database contains information of long-term and

permanent professionals to 5 receiving countries • These include UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and USA

• Other data sources include administrative sources from these countries

Permanent and long-term migration outflows to New Zealand (an example)

Year Number of South African long-term migrants to New Zealand as published by Stats New Zealand

1992 59

1993 430

1994 2606

1995 2011

1996 1851

1997 2703

1998 2363

Migration inflows

• Long-term and permanent migration inflows for mid-2005 to 2006 based on permits issued is estimated at 30,200

• Majority of those were study permits (20085) followed by work permits (8576)

• Overwhelming majority of study permits to African students (16754)

• Europeans and Africans constitute ½ of all wrok permits issued with Africans having been issued 2600 permits and Europeans 2516.

• Most European work permit holders are from the UK

Migration inflows (2)

• There has been an increase in Asian (Chinese and Korean) workers settling as long-term migrants

• Short-term migrants are overwhelmingly from neighboring states and SADC

• Most short-term migrants from Lesotho, Zimbabwe and Swaziland

• Most are migrant laborers on the mines or agricultural workers in rural parts of South Africa

• However, the data may be seriously flawed– Depends on what is stated as intention– Many short-term migrants overstay

Conclusion

• Stats SA in process of re-engineering migration statistics– Focus should be place on concepts and definitions (UN

recommendations)– Better collaboration with Department of Home Affairs - data

provider– Not all the data collected are being processed – Important that Stats SA obtains data on permit number which

can be linked to actual date of entry and actual date of departure.

– Better estimates of migration outflows by South African nationals