Perceptions versus Behavior: New Insights into South African Internal - PDF document

Myroniuk, Tyler W. 2018. IUSSP working paper. Do not cite without author’s permission. Perceptions versus Behavior: New Insights into South African Internal Migration Tyler W. Myroniuk, George Mason University Department of Sociology and Anthropology Robinson Hall B, Room 305, 4400 University Drive, 3G5, Fairfax, VA 22030 Acknowledgments: I would like to thank Michael White, Chantel Pheiffer, Becca Wang, Jason Davis, Maria Abascal, Casey Miller, and Lindsey Reynolds for their critiques of this manuscript at different stages of development. The research was funded indirectly by grant R24 HD041020, Brown University Population Studies & Training Center. Further, the National Income Dynamics Study has been implemented by the Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit (SALDRU) based at the University of Cape Town’s School of Economics. I would also like to extend my thanks to the research team currently led by Murray Leibbrandt, Ingrid Woolard, Cecil Mlatsheni, Nicola Branson, and Samantha Richmond. 1

Myroniuk, Tyler W. 2018. IUSSP working paper. Do not cite without author’s permission. Abstract Throughout sub-Saharan Africa, individuals tend to engage in frequent internal migration episodes, often in efforts to provide for their households and survive. The perception that one will move and the disjuncture between acting upon such perceptions is at the foundation of migration research. In the case of South Africa, men and women have varying abilities to move, face different consequences, and might judge the benefits of moving not worthwhile after evaluating their initial migratory intentions. This paper goes beyond conventional migration studies by seeking to understand whether the factors associated with the perceived likelihood of migration are similar to those associated with migration itself (including the extent to which prior conceptions of migrating influence behavior) for Black South African residents. The 2008, 2010, and 2012 waves of the nationally representative South African National Income Dynamics Study are exploited, and fixed- effects regressions are employed to examine the perceived chances of migrating and migration behavior. There are marked gender differences, and migration perceptions are only linked to migration behavior for women. Keywords: gender, internal migration, longitudinal data, perceptions, South Africa 2

Myroniuk, Tyler W. 2018. IUSSP working paper. Do not cite without author’s permission. Introduction Population growth, urbanization, and increasing disparities between cities and rural areas in the past half- century have made internal migration a central “economic survival strategy” for many households in sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. 1 This type of migration is often, although not exhaustively, a household decision that attempts to optimize financial and/or non- financial returns on the investment to send someone to a city or other rural area to look for work. 2 Such migration strategies will almost certainly continue over the course of the 21 st century in SSA, where much of the world’s p opulation growth 3 and continued urbanization will come from In South Africa, where this study takes place, individuals tend to frequently, and internally, migrate between urban and rural areas, often between provinces too, in such economic survival efforts. 4 In the years immediately after the end of apartheid in 1994 — and, thus, the end of internal travel restrictions for non-Whites — Black South Africans, in particular, rapidly took advantage of this new era by migrating to urban areas in greater numbers than ever before to seek out 1 Mberu, B. U. (2016). African Migration and Population Distribution: Recent Trends, Methodological Challenges and Policy Issues. In, MJ White (ed.), International Handbook of Migration and Population Distribution (pp. 245-267). Springer Netherlands, p. 248. 2 Stark, O., & Taylor, J. E. (1991). Migration incentives, migration types: The role of relative deprivation. The economic journal , 101 (48), 1163-1178. 3 Gerland, P., Raftery, A. E., Ševčíková, H., Li, N., Gu, D., Spoorenberg, T., et al. (2014). World population stabilization unlikely this century. Science , 346 (6206), 234-237. 4 Collinson, M., Tollman, S. M., Kahn, K., Clark, S. J., & Garenne, M. (2006). Highly prevalent circular migration: households, mobility and economic status in rural South Africa. In M. Tienda et al. (Eds.), Africa on the move: African migration and urbanisation in comparative perspective (pp. 194-216). Johannesburg: Wits University Press. Collinson, M. A. (2010). Striving against adversity: the dynamics of migration, health and poverty in rural South Africa. Global Health Action , 3 , 5080. 3

Myroniuk, Tyler W. 2018. IUSSP working paper. Do not cite without author’s permission. employment and a better life for themselves and their families. 5 However, in the years since, labor migration throughout the country has declined, somewhat inexplicably. 6 Scholarly work uncovering the determinants of internal migration in South Africa, and elsewhere in SSA, is often marred by a lack of detailed, longitudinal data — thereby increasing the extent to which unobserved heterogeneity influences results — and/or the dearth of nationally representative data. This paper goes beyond conventional migration studies by seeking to understand whether the factors associated with the perceived likelihood of migration are similar to those associated with migration itself (including the extent to which prior conceptions of migrating influence behavior) for Black South Africans. Further, the analyses assess if there are important differences in the likelihood of migrating between individuals who believe that they will move in the near future and those who do not. The perception that one will move and the disjuncture between acting upon such perceptions is at the foundation of migration research. In the case of South Africa, men and women have varying abilities to move, face different consequences, and might judge the benefits of moving not worthwhile after evaluating their initial migratory intentions. The distinctions of migration perceptions versus behavior are virtually always overlooked or unmeasured aspects of migration, in large part due to the difficulties in conducting panel studies that follow-up with migrants in SSA nations. I seek to overcome prior limitations that migration research has faced by exploiting the nationally representative National Income Dynamics Study (NIDS) in South Africa, and employing quasi-experimental techniques to identify the temporal ordering of perceptions of 5 Reed, H.E. (2013). Moving across boundaries: migration in South Africa, 1950 – 2000. Demography , 50 (1), 71-95. 6 Posel, D. (2010). Households and labour migration in post-apartheid South Africa. Journal of Studies in Economics and Econometrics , 34 (3), 129-41. 4

Myroniuk, Tyler W. 2018. IUSSP working paper. Do not cite without author’s permission. migration and behavior in addition to minimizing bias stemming from underlying, fixed, unobserved factors that often hamper such analyses. 7 In doing so, I offer a more-nuanced understanding of the critical, life-altering, decision to migrate, that individuals of all ages in SSA face. Why Move? Within South Africa, as in other SSA nations, individuals generally migrate or plan to migrate with the belief that this will improve their and their families’ economic well-being, even if this is not always the case. 8 A robust literature has shown that this type of migration among adults comes in many forms, although all are typically due to employment/wages, marriage, and/or health. 9 Most commonly, this research has shown that, 1) the opportunity to take a job will spur 7 Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit. (2016). National Income Dynamics Study 2008, Wave 1 [dataset]. Version 6.1. Cape Town: Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit [producer], 2016. Cape Town: DataFirst [distributor]. Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit. (2016). National Income Dynamics Study 2010-2011, Wave 2 [dataset]. Version 3.1. Cape Town: Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit [producer], 2016. Cape Town: DataFirst [distributor]. Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit. (2016) National Income Dynamics Study 2012, Wave 3 [dataset]. Version 2.1. Cape Town: Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit [producer], 2016. Cape Town: DataFirst [distributor]. 8 Oosthuizen, M., and P. Naidoo 2004 “Internal Migration to the Gauteng Province.” Working Paper, Development Policy Research Unit, University of Cape Town. Posel, D., and D. Casale 2006 “Internal Labor Migration and Household Poverty in Post - Apartheid South Africa.” In Poverty and Policy in Post -Apartheid South Africa. Eds. H. Bhorat, and R. Kanbur. Cape Town: Human Sciences Research Council Press. Pp. 351 – 365. 9 Although there are too many examples to cite here, for relevant and recent micro- and macro- level research, see: Anglewicz, P. (2012). Migration, marital change, and HIV infection in Malawi. Demography , 49 (1), 239-265. Camlin, C. S., Snow, R. C., & Hosegood, V. (2014). Gendered patterns of migration in rural South Africa. Population, space and place , 20 (6), 528-551. Choe, C., & Chrite, E. L. (2014). Internal migration of blacks in south africa: An application of the roy model. South African Journal of Economics , 82 (1), 81-98. 5