Fragmenting the Family? The Complexity of Household Migration Strategies in Post-apartheid South Africa

Hall Katharine () and Dorrit Posel
Additional contact information
Hall Katharine: Children’s Institute, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa

IZA Journal of Development and Migration, 2019, vol. 10, issue 2, 20

Abstract: The disruption of family life is one of the important legacies of South Africa’s colonial and apartheid history. Families were undermined by deliberate strategies implemented through the pass laws, forced removals, urban housing policy, and the creation of homelands. Despite the removal of legal restrictions on permanent urban settlement and family co-residence for Africans, patterns of internal and oscillating labor migration have endured, dual or stretched households continue to link urban and rural nodes, children have remained less urbanized than adults, and many grow up without coresident parents. Although children are clearly affected by adult labor migration, they have tended to be ignored in the migration discourse. In this study, we add to the literature by showing how a child lens advances our understanding of the complexities of household arrangements and migration processes for families. In a mixed-methods study, we use nationally representative panel data to describe persistence, and also change, in migration patterns in South Africa when viewed from the perspective of children. We then draw on a detailed case study to explore what factors constrain or permit families to migrate together, or children to join adults at migration destination areas.

Keywords: children; family migration; household strategies; mixed methods; South Africa (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J13 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.2478/izajodm-2019-0004 (text/html)

Related works:
Working Paper: Fragmenting the family?: The complexity of household migration strategies in post-apartheid South Africa (2018)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:vrs:izajdm:v:10:y:2019:i:2:p:22-48:n:1

DOI: 10.2478/izajodm-2019-0004

Access Statistics for this article

IZA Journal of Development and Migration is currently edited by David A. Lam, Hartmut F. Lehmann and Francesco Pastore

More articles in IZA Journal of Development and Migration from Sciendo & Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().