Immigration and human development outcomes in post-apartheid South Africa
- Authors: Nyagweta, David Tinashe
- Date: 2023-12
- Subjects: Emigration and immigration -- Economic aspects , South Africa -- Emigration and immigration -- Economic aspects , Emigration and immigration -- Government policy
- Language: English
- Type: Doctoral theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/65912 , vital:74283
- Description: Immigration remains an issue of constant and recuring debate which in many instances has reached extreme limits of violent confrontation. South Africa has been at the forefront of this debate given the history of migration that has led to the creation of the modern state. In this context, the current era has presented contestations on the implications of immigration to the country and how that relates to human development. With this backdrop, this thesis sought to investigate international immigration and its relation to human development outcomes within context of the democratic era in South Africa. Thus, the study focused on evaluating the differences between immigrants and non-immigrants in terms of physical and mental health, subjective wellbeing, and education. Furthermore, the study evaluated the relationship between immigration concentration across provinces and human development outcomes in aggregate. The comprehensive results focusing on both the full and racial specific sample identified that there are no significant differences between immigrants and non-immigrants in terms of health pinned to self-reported health. This finding supports small scale studies in South Africa and other countries which divert from the immigrant-paradox paradigm although this could be accounted for by convergence adjustments to the healthy immigrant effect. In terms of mental health and subjective wellbeing, the results showed that immigrants are significantly less likely to report depressive level scores on the CEDS-10 scale. Thus, the study demonstrated that the healthy immigrant effect holds in relation to depression. Contrarily, in terms of satisfaction with life, no significant differences are found between immigrants and non-immigrants, thus pointing to possible sudden convergence upwards in satisfaction with life, particularly considering most immigrants are from countries with lower levels of satisfaction with life. In relation to education findings, it was demonstrated that there are no significant differences between immigrant and non-immigrant students in terms of progression. Thus, neither the straight-line nor immigrant-paradox argument prevails as found mostly in the Global North. Lastly, regional analysis which accounted for human development across provinces showed that a significant positive relationship exists between immigration concentration and human development overall coupled with the component accounting for education diverting from panel studies. Furthermore, insignificant relationship is found in terms of health and income supporting findings by the study of no differences between immigrants and non-immigrants. Thus, this thesis proved that the pessimistic view on immigrants significantly diverting from the overall health and education levels coupled with negative relationship with human development are not supported empirically within the context of post-apartheid South Africa. Results of this study provide evidence that is critical to formulate policy, both in terms of immigration and further factors identified as important markers, on issues of education and physical and mental health such as race, gender, and wealth. In this regard, the differences in findings from those in countries especially in Global North challenge policies based on theoretical and empirical formulations that lack account for countries especially in the Global South which have increased levels of both inequality and poverty. Thus, it is critical that policies reflect the socioeconomic issues a country faces and informed by research that takes regional factors within a country to account. The study prescribes policies which aim to reduce discrimination due to unproved assumptions and those that aim to ensure that racial and income inequality are tackled within the country. In terms of immigration, rollout of awareness projects and campaigns, coupled with regional policies and projects rooted in communities to ensure participation of both sending and receiving countries will create platforms for better structuring of policies to tackle immigration especially given the integration goals of the African Union. Moreover, critical revaluation of policies and implementation thereof is critical given results identify inequality with those that are African, Coloured, and from poorer households facing lower levels of health, education and high levels of depression scores coupled with life dissatisfaction. Policies should thus, focus on ensuring that redistributive investments are enabled and implemented efficiently for better outcomes in terms of access to education, health, and economic opportunities for the disadvantaged. In enabling such projects with considerations of societal needs and immigration policies, strides could be made given that most contestations arise out of increased inequalities and socioeconomic destitution. , Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Business and Economic Sciences, School of Economics, Development and Tourism, 2023
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- Date Issued: 2023-12
Labour immigration, per capita income growth and unemployment in post-apartheid South Africa
- Authors: Nyagweta, David Tinashe
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Unemployment rate
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MCom
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/44531 , vital:38136
- Description: Since the end of apartheid in 1994, South Africa has experienced considerable increase in immigration. The country’s immigrant population share relative to the total population stood at 2.4% in 1995 which soared to 7.6% in 2017. This increase has mostly been enticed by the highly competitive economic and political outlook of the rainbow nation in relation to other global developing nations. Unfortunately, reality of increased immigration particularly, labour-based immigration has spurred fierce debates which in many instances manifested into xenophobic violence. Pessimism amongst public, academic and political spheres continues to grow with detrimental economic strains of slow per capita income growth and high unemployment cited as immigration outcomes. The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether labour-based immigration contributed to changes in per capita income growth and unemployment levels in South Africa. Using unemployment rate, labour immigration entrances and per capita income growth rate data from 1994-2017, the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds test was used to test for long run relationship together with the short run dynamic model. Evidence from the underlying results show that labour immigration has an insignificant causal effect on both per capita income growth and unemployment. Thus, contrary to pessimistic public and political sentiment, constrained income growth and increased unemployment are not attributed to high rates of labour immigration. Based on these findings policy makers should improve alignment of policies with regional and multinational blocs, constitutional obligations and economic goals to ensure sound immigration policies. Furthermore, communities should enable programs which aim to reduce tensions between immigrants and citizens whilst building towards inclusive development.
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- Date Issued: 2019