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Estimating migration flows in South Africa Statistics South Africa December 2006.
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Transcript of Estimating migration flows in South Africa Statistics South Africa December 2006.
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
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
Source country
Per
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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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5,000
10,000
15,000
20,000
25,000
30,000
35,000U
K
US
A
Ger
man
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Net
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Fra
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Aus
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Italy
Indi
a
Source country
Nu
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avel
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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
-15
-10
-5
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
Source country
Per
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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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20,000
40,000
60,000
80,000
100,000
120,000
140,000
160,000
180,000Le
soth
o
Zim
babw
e
Sw
azila
nd
Moz
ambi
que
Bot
swan
a
Nam
ibia
Zam
bia
Mal
awi
Source country
Nu
mb
er o
f tr
avel
lers
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