Estimating migration flows in South Africa

Estimating migration flows in South Africa Statistics South Africa December 2006

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

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 (2)

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 Introduction (3)

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 Current definitions of migration in South Africa

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 Visitor arrivals and departures

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 Migration outflows from South Africa

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

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

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 Migration inflows (2)

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 Conclusion

Estimating migration flows in South Africa