{"id":150473,"date":"2017-01-14T19:00:03","date_gmt":"2017-01-14T17:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=150473"},"modified":"2017-01-13T17:07:34","modified_gmt":"2017-01-13T15:07:34","slug":"how-many-foreigners-really-live-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/150473\/how-many-foreigners-really-live-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"How many foreigners really live in South Africa?"},"content":{"rendered":"

South African television programme Carte Blanche investigated the fraught journey to South Africa many Malawians experience. But their hard-hitting figure that \u201calmost one-third of Malawi\u2019s population\u201d live in South Africa is completely off-point.<\/em><\/p>\n

For some Malawians trying to get to South Africa without travel documents, the journey ends in robbery, sexual assault or even death.<\/p>\n

South African investigative journalism show Carte Blanche<\/a> last year documented these atrocities<\/a> and the insert was repeated last Sunday.<\/p>\n

Advertising the show, Carte Blanche stated on <\/a>their website<\/a> (and in a TV promo,according to a reader<\/a>) that \u201calmost one-third of Malawi\u2019s population lives and works in South Africa.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like many other African nationals, Malawians make their way to South Africa for various reasons. But is there evidence that nearly a third of Malawi\u2019s population have left for South Africa?<\/p>\n

\u2018I don\u2019t have a real figure\u2019<\/h3>\n

The claim originated with the Malawian high commissioner to South Africa, Professor Chrissie Kaponda, who was asked how many Malawians live in South Africa.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201dKaponda told Carte Blanche. \u201cI don\u2019t have a real figure but I have heard projections like 6 million or 5 million. Actually, we don\u2019t have any reports of how many Malawians are here.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Carte Blanche voice-over continued, stating that the figure used by Kaponda represents \u201calmost a third of the country\u2019s entire population of 18 million\u201d.<\/p>\n

This figure is more than the most recent estimates of Malawi\u2019s population. Malawi\u2019sNational Statistical Office<\/a> has projected that in 2016 the country\u2019s population would be16.83 million<\/a> while the United Nations estimated the population at 17.75 million<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Date shows less than 100,000 Malawians in SA<\/h3>\n

To start with, if 5 to 6 million Malawians lived in South Africa, it would represent as much as triple the total number of foreign-born migrants currently thought to live in the country.<\/p>\n

South Africa\u2019s 2011 Census<\/a> showed an estimated 2.2 million people living in South Africa were born outside the country. Statistics South Africa\u2019s recent 2016 Community Survey<\/a>found this figure had dropped to 1.6 million people. However, this decline seems improbable and Stats SA indicated that they would be investigating<\/a> the matter.<\/p>\n

The UN provides a higher estimate of the migrant population in South Africa, at 3.14 million<\/a> by mid-2015. In a detailed analysis for Africa Check<\/a>, University of Cape Town demographer Professor Tom Moultrie suggests that based on available data, at best we can assume that there are \u201cbetween one and three million\u201d foreign-born migrants living in South Africa.<\/p>\n

Stats SA and the UN population division on international migration both provide estimates of Malawians living in South Africa that are magnitudes lower than the 5 to 6 million claimed.<\/p>\n

\u2018A miracle\u2019 if claim were true<\/h3>\n

Migration data is often inexact as it is \u201cnotoriously hard to collect\u201d, Moultrie explained<\/a>. However, if the number of Malawians living in South Africa did stretch into the millions, experts say there would be other indicators of such a dramatic spike<\/p>\n

\u201cThe precise numbers of foreigners in South Africa is up for debate,\u201d Professor Loren Landau from the African Centre for Migration and Society<\/a> at the University of the Witwatersrand told Africa Check. \u201cThe even more difficult task of counting people from a particular country is open to further interpretation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, the difference between the official estimates and the Carte Blanche figure\u00a0is too big, Landau added.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be a miracle\u201d if the true number of Malawians in South Africa were more than 60 times the available estimates, he said.<\/p>\n

Professor of actuarial science at the University of Cape Town\u2019s Centre for Actuarial Research<\/a>, Rob Dorrington, explained: \u201cUnless there is some reason that we are missingMalawians in particular the same would have to be true for other foreign-born people, at least the majority of foreigners.\u201d<\/p>\n

The chief director for demography at Stats SA, Diego Iturralde, said similar claims have been about other nationalities but that these statements lack proof.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is totally out of the question that there would be 5 to 6 million Malawians in South Africa. Similar suggestions have been made about Zimbabwe, Bangladesh and other country\u2019s residents in South Africa and none of themare accompanied by any robust or credible data,\u201d he told Africa Check.<\/p>\n

If there were that many Malawians, or that many foreign-born migrants from any nation, the spike would be reflected in other data, such as annual birth rates, he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cMigration is at the best of times a complex thing to measure, and I would advise the public at large to desist from making headline-grabbing claims without substantiating it with data that is robust, credible and has passed the scientific test for rigour,\u201d Iturralde said.<\/p>\n

The 2011 census indicated that 86,606 people<\/a> who were born in Malawi lived in South Africa. The latest figure, from the 2016 survey, is 78,796<\/a>. This is in line with the UN population division\u2019s 2015 estimate of 76,605<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The census and community surveys do not ask whether or not migrants are documented and therefore these figures should include all foreign-born migrants. However, there are suggestions that, given South Africa\u2019s history of xenophobia, foreign-born migrants are increasingly cautious <\/a>of<\/a> revealing their origins<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Although concerns have been raised about recent figures and estimates surrounding foreign-born migrants in South Africa, it is plain to see that the total number of Malawi-born migrants living in South Africa does not come remotely close to the millions suggested.<\/p>\n

Conclusion: The claim is nowhere near correct<\/h3>\n

The Malawi high commissioner\u2019s statement to Carte Blanche, that she had \u201cheard projections like 6 million or 5 million\u201d Malawi-born citizens were living in South Africa, is an anecdotal claim. It could and should have easily been checked and debunked by the South African investigative reporting programme.<\/p>\n

Although official foreign-born migration estimates are not without problems, figures from organisations like Stats SA and the UN clearly show that the total number of foreign-born migrants living in South Africa is significantly less than that.<\/p>\n

In addition, all current data suggests that the Malawi-born population currently living in South Africa does not exceed 100,000 people \u2013 a fraction of the incorrect figure beamed into living rooms around the country.<\/p>\n

\n

Read:\u00a0400,000 \u201cpoor whites\u201d in South Africa a myth: Africa Check<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Carte Blanche recently claimed that \u201calmost one-third of Malawi\u2019s population\u201d – almost 6 million foreigners – live in South Africa, but an Africa Check’s investigation shows that this is way off.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":58895,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-150473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150473"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150473\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":150475,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150473\/revisions\/150475"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}