Poverty and migration in a transformed South Africa

English: Despite poverty being the focus of many regional, national and international policy frameworks, 54% of the South African population continue to live in poverty. While escaping poverty is admittedly difficult, breaking the intergenerational transmission of poverty constitutes an even bigger challenge. To escape poverty, individuals and households turn to methods such as migration as means of breaking the cycle of poverty. The aim of the study was to investigate the links between poverty dynamics and migration in a transformed South Africa. The study followed a two-pronged approach to investigate these links. The first approach investigated inter-household dynamics by focusing on poverty and on the intergenerational transfer of poverty from core to dynasty households. The first approach moreover investigated migration and remittances in core and dynasty households and their influence on poverty in dynasty households. The second approach explored intradynasty household dynamics by comparing core and non-core members in dynasty households. The influence of core-member- and non-core member characteristics on dynasty household welfare was also investigated in this approach. To achieve the specified aim, this study utilised data generated by the KwaZulu-Natal Income Dynamics Study (KIDS). According to the findings of the first analytical approach, dynasty households in the postapartheid era are better off than their core counterparts by not only having higher average and median levels of household expenditure, but also lower levels of headcount poverty, depth of poverty and severity of poverty. The analysis further supports the existence of the intergenerational transfer (IGT) of poverty in respect of households living in KwaZulu-Natal by increasing the probability that a dynasty will be the poor by 40.3% – if, that is, the household in question comes from a chronically poor background. The findings also indicate that the mobility of core households is relatively higher in the post-apartheid era than earlier on in the late-apartheid era. This study further confirms that migration is a household riskdiversification strategy because dynasty households from chronically poor backgrounds will be more likely to migrate. Migratory dynasty households, on the other hand, demonstrate significantly lower levels of poverty than non-migratory dynasty households. The co-insurance motive for remitting was also confirmed: dynasties from chronically poor backgrounds were found to be more likely to receive remittances and the levels of poverty were moreover significantly lower for dynasty households receiving remittances. The findings of the second analytical approach reveal the importance of intra-household dynamics in respect of poverty in dynasty households. The results suggest that core individuals are crucial for the survival of dynasty households and stand to contribute more to poverty alleviation in dynasty households than do non-core household members in that core individuals enjoy higher levels of education and of social capital, they are in the labour force, are employed and are involved in remittance flows and they also receive social transfers from government. The findings of the second approach further suggest that the social capital provided by family members is important in respect of poverty alleviation. This study contributes to the literature on poverty in that it, on the one hand investigates the linkages between poverty and poverty dynamics and, on the other, migration and remittances. This study also contributes to the literature on migration and remittance flows and adds to our understanding of how migration relates to poverty dynamics in South African households.