Hangwelani Hope Magidimisha

Profiling South African gender inequality in informal self-employment

South Africa is a nation with high unemployment, and informal self-employment can offer an escape from poverty. For this reason, many South African women are currently self-employed. Men also enter the informal sector and though in the minority, they tend to earn more than women. The aim of this paper was to construct a profile of gender differences in South African informal self-employment using the 2005 Labour Force Survey and the 2005 Survey of Employers and Self-Employed. The results of our study reveal that along with distinct earning differences, female informal enterprise owners have different characteristics from their male counterparts. In order to improve the earnings potential of such owners, this paper outlines a series of interventions voiced by the women themselves that offer the potential of improving the earnings.

Crisis, Identity and (Be)longing: A Thematic Introduction of the Vestiges of Migration in Post-independent Southern Africa

Whilst the notion of migration in the Southern African region underscores the permeability of borders, its historiography has been compartmentalised in academic circles and, as a result, has failed to capture the complexity of human mobility in its various forms. Here, we must consider the often neglected relations between multiple communities (e.g. different migrant groups) in the process of (un)settlement but also bear in mind that people co-exist and interact with a myriad of other elements themselves in circulation, from objects and merchandise to non-human actors. Building on these premises, this introduction introduces important themes of the vestiges of migration in post-independence Southern Africa. Drawing on numerous debates around the political economy of migration as crisis, identity formations, citizen and belonging, this introduction addresses how critical border-making and border-crossing processes have been, and still are, shaping trajectories of movements in Southern Africa.

Regeneration and Integration in Southern Africa: Concluding Comments on Contemporary Challenges and Possibilities

The Southern African region provides the backdrop that informs much of the complexities of mobility, border making and border crossing that the world is currently grappling with. With the global migration crisis intensifying, the movement of men, women and children in search of better opportunities will deepen and host countries will be challenged to integrate and revitalise new societies that will emerge as a result. It summarises seminal arguments around the possibilities of regional integration in Southern Africa as a regenerative mechanism. It further builds an ambitious imagining framework and reflects how the region can re-imagine borderless citizenship moving forward.

Gender, Migration and Crisis in Southern Africa: Contestations and Tensions in the Informal Spaces and ‘Illegal Labour’ Market

Southern Africa has a long history of migration, but less has been documented about the feminisation of this phenomenon. Globally, there is evidence of the increase of migrant flows, with women increasingly migrating as independent migrants in their own rights. This change of migration dynamics is also observable in Southern Africa. As the standards of living continue to deteriorate within some Southern African countries, women have also been forced to migrate in pursuit of greener pastures. With cultural problems and discriminatory policies and practices in host countries, the situation of women can be precarious and more traumatic. Migrants and refugees who are not considered citizens with full rights face xenophobic reactions from the local population and may be expelled when economic and political conditions deteriorate. Owing to unanticipated hardships in destination countries, migrant women are seen concentrated in the informal sectors of the economy, doing informal activities and or in worst cases involved in illegal and immoral practices to make ends meet. It is from this perspective that issues of gender in migration are given full attention in this chapter.

Uneven Development and Conflict in Southern Africa: Interrogating the Patterns and Accumulation Processes

Over the past two decades, Southern Africa has witnessed economic growth powered by relative political stability. Development has occurred at varying pace in different parts of the region on the foundation of unequal share of resources, opportunities and benefits. In most cases, politically and economically privileged elites are reaping the economic benefits whilst exploiting and excluding millions of the disenfranchised poor. This paper interrogates development patterns, mechanisms of resource allocation and the conflicts associated with uneven geographies of income and poverty. This paper draws exclusively from secondary data on urban, economic and social development between 2000 and 2015 in South Africa and Zimbabwe. Observations show that more and more poor Africans are forced to migrate to better performing economies as a sheer survival strategy. The paper concludes by discussing why the competition for opportunities in receiving countries has witnessed negative responses characterised by xenophobic attacks on foreigners in some instances. In doing so, it highlights the difficulties that governments in southern African face in reconciling the redistributive priorities of the urban poor with strategies to maintain long-term economic and political stability.

Migration Policies in the Region: Thinking Beyond the Enclaved Political Economy

In general, migration represents an important livelihood and coping strategy due to ecological and economic downturns in the region. Migration flows in Southern Africa consist of millions of economically active people and an unspecified number of undocumented migrants who comprise of many vulnerable populations. This complex and mixed pattern of migration poses a number of challenges for migrants and receiving communities. On the flip side of the same token, if managed properly, migration has been proved to contribute to positive outcomes in both sending and receiving countries. It is therefore not a caricature for one to say that there is a thoughtful need of regionally crafted migration policies which address the problem on mutual and common grounds. The migration policy formation discourse has been marked by a bone of contention in the region in the twenty-first century due to the fact that some countries’ favourable migration policies might not be favourable to other countries. It is therefore fundamental for countries within the region to be bound by common policy frameworks rather than a concoction of national policies which neither speak to each other nor aim to harmonise the region in all sectors of interest.