Emigration to South Africa's Mines

This paper presents a simultaneous econometric model of both the determinants of international migration to the South African mines and of some of the economic consequences for each of the labor supplying countries. Not only are the short-run effects of labor withdrawal on traditional crop cultivation and the domestic wage labor markets considered but also the long-term effects of savings from mine earnings invested in crops and cattle in the home countries. The experiences of Botswana Lesotho Malawi Mozambique and the South African homelands are compared. It is shown that emigration to the South African mines has...reduced crop production in the subsistence sectors of Botswana Lesotho Malawi and the South African homelands in the short run. But the results also suggest that earnings of migrants have enhanced both crop productivity and cattle accumulation in the longer run except in Lesotho. (EXCERPT)