{"id":318736,"date":"2019-05-23T11:34:21","date_gmt":"2019-05-23T09:34:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=318736"},"modified":"2019-05-23T12:39:54","modified_gmt":"2019-05-23T10:39:54","slug":"south-africas-emigration-problem-no-one-knows-how-big-the-brain-drain-really-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/lifestyle\/318736\/south-africas-emigration-problem-no-one-knows-how-big-the-brain-drain-really-is\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa’s emigration problem – no one knows how big the brain drain really is"},"content":{"rendered":"

In an April 2019 episode<\/a>\u00a0of the Money Show on talk radio\u00a0702<\/a>, host Bruce Whitfield explored why South Africa\u2019s economy was \u201cin trouble\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cBrain drain\u201d \u2013 the\u00a0long-term departure<\/a>\u00a0of skilled people from a country \u2013 was part of the discussion. \u201cFor every one professional immigrating to South Africa, eight professionals are leaving our shores,\u201d\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0Johannes Wessels, a guest on the show.<\/p>\n

Wessels is director of the\u00a0Enterprise Observatory of South Africa<\/a>, which researches the environment in which businesses operate.<\/p>\n

Is this startling stat on the money?<\/p>\n

\n

\u2018Little official focus\u2019 on emigration<\/strong><\/p>\n

On the show and in communication with Africa Check, Wessels said the statistic came from a 2017 department of home affairs\u00a0white paper on international migration<\/a>.\u00a0(Note: You can read his\u00a0<\/i>full response to our findings here<\/i><\/a>.)<\/i><\/p>\n

In\u00a0a chapter<\/a>\u00a0on how people leaving South Africa could still benefit the country, the document said this was a new policy area that hadn\u2019t received much attention. It then quoted statistics on emigration.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne study\u201d, it said, estimated that more than 520,000 South Africans emigrated from 1989 to 2003 \u2013 and the number was growing at 9% a year.<\/p>\n

Some 120,000 of them had professional qualifications, making up \u201cabout 7% of the total stock of professionals employed in South Africa\u201d. The number of skilled workers leaving,\u00a0the white paper noted<\/a>, \u201cis more than eight times\u201d the number who immigrated to South Africa in the same period.<\/p>\n

The country\u2019s official data agency, Statistics South Africa,\u00a0defines professionals<\/a>\u00a0as people whose jobs require \u201ca high level of professional knowledge, skills and experience\u201d.<\/p>\n

\n

\u2018Wide acceptance\u2019 that there are underestimates<\/strong><\/p>\n

But the white paper didn\u2019t give any details about the study it cited. We\u2019ve asked the home affairs department for the reference but are yet to hear back from them.<\/p>\n

Africa Check traced the original statistic to\u00a0a 2006 paper<\/a>\u00a0on South Africa\u2019s immigration policy. It was co-authored by Dr Matthew Stern, now MD of consultancy\u00a0DNA Economics<\/a>, and G\u00e1bor Szalontai, the head of risk at data and analytics company\u00a0SAS Africa<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Stats SA<\/a>\u00a0collects some data on people immigrating to South Africa and self-declared emigrants leaving to settle elsewhere.<\/p>\n

Information on self-declared emigrants was collected on the B1-117 form. Until 2003 it was compulsory for emigrants leaving from the country\u2019s three international airports (Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town) to complete it.<\/p>\n

But Stern and Szalontai said it was\u00a0widely accepted<\/a>\u00a0that the number of people leaving was underestimated, and gave two key reasons for this. Some were reluctant to list emigration as their reason for travel \u2013 to reduce administrative hassles, for example \u2013 while others didn\u2019t plan to leave permanently.<\/p>\n

\n

Difficult to accurately verify numbers<\/strong><\/p>\n

And a\u00a02005 Stats SA report<\/a>\u00a0on the country\u2019s migration patterns in 2003\u00a0says<\/a>\u00a0\u201cit is not always feasible to accurately verify\u201d the details filled in on the B1-117 form. The statistics in the report are therefore for \u201cself-declared emigration, which is different from actual emigration\u201d.<\/p>\n

In their study, Stern and Szalontai\u00a0said that<\/a>\u00a0to better understand how many people are leaving South Africa, \u201cmost researchers\u201d supplement Stats SA\u2019s data with statistics from the emigrants\u2019 destination countries.<\/p>\n

Their study focused on the UK, US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, identified as the main receiving countries. They estimated that from 1989 to 2003 the five countries received almost\u00a070%<\/a>of all emigrants from South Africa.<\/p>\n

They found that Stats SA had significantly undercounted emigration numbers.<\/p>\n

\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n
Emigration from South Africa (1989 – 2003)<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
Stats SA figure<\/td>\n130 965<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Recalculation by researchers<\/td>\n521 571<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Source: <\/i>Stern and Szalontai, 2006.<\/i><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

But how many of these emigrants were professionals?<\/p>\n

Stats SA\u2019s migration data was categorised by employment and included a \u201cprofessional\u201d category. Stern and Szalontai calculated that, according to Stats SA data, 29,142 professionals emigrated from South Africa from 1989 to 2003.<\/p>\n

But their study found the number was closer to\u00a0118,000\u00a0\u2013 or eight times that of Stats SA.<\/a><\/p>\n

In that period 14,221 people immigrated to South Africa, according to Stats SA.<\/p>\n

\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Professional migration (1989 – 2003)<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
Emigration of professionals (Stats SA)<\/td>\n29 142<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Emigration of professionals (recalculation by researchers)<\/td>\n117 554<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Immigration of professionals (Stats SA)<\/td>\n14 221<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Source: <\/i>Stern and Szalontai, 2006.<\/i><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n

\u2018A time of extreme political uncertainty and change\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

Do these migration trends hold up today?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is of course completely inappropriate to use data from 1989 to 2003 (a time of extreme political uncertainty and change) to comment on current emigration trends,\u201d Stern told Africa Check.<\/p>\n

Data on emigration was also \u201chard to come by\u201d because of insufficient reporting, he added.<\/p>\n

Complicating the picture is that South Africa relaxed its reporting requirements in 2003 after theImmigration Act<\/a>\u00a0became law. Since then the passport barcodes of South Africans leaving or arriving home are\u00a0no longer scanned<\/a>\u00a0at ports of exit or entry, as they were previously. And South Africans leaving the country don\u2019t have to fill in the departure form any more.<\/p>\n

\n

What does Stat SA\u2019s most recent data show? Not much<\/strong><\/p>\n

Stats SA\u2019s most recent data on emigrants comes from the\u00a02016 community survey<\/a>, Angela Ngyende, the agency\u2019s director of census content development and products, told Africa Check.<\/p>\n

The survey\u00a0notes that<\/a>\u00a0measuring emigration is a challenge, because many of the people leaving don\u2019t declare their departure to authorities and there\u2019s no way to force them to do so.<\/p>\n

But the community survey still has \u201csome figures on areas of interest\u201d, Ngyende said. It estimates that\u00a097,460<\/a>\u00a0South Africans emigrated in the years 2006 to 2016.<\/p>\n

That this is an undercount is highly possible, the survey says. The number only includes people who still have family in South Africa, who can thus confirm the emigration. If a whole family emigrates, they are not counted.<\/p>\n

The survey\u00a0also counted<\/a>\u00a0the number of people who said they were born outside South Africa. It came to a total of 888,563 from 2006 to 2016. . But their occupation was not recorded, Ramadimetja Matji, director of health and vital stats at Stats SA, told Africa Check.<\/p>\n

The agency also did not record the race of people born outside South Africa, Matji said.<\/p>\n

\n

\u2018We don\u2019t know, Stats SA doesn\u2019t know\u2019\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The data situation is a \u201cminefield\u201d, Angel Jones, CEO of\u00a0Homecoming Revolution<\/a>, told Africa Check. She was also a guest on the \u201cbrain drain\u201d radio show.<\/p>\n

Her company works to bring African talent back to the continent.<\/p>\n

Jones told us they \u201cget calls from all over the world\u201d from people wanting to know the number of people emigrating to and from South Africa. \u201cWe say we can\u2019t do it. We don\u2019t know, Stats SA doesn\u2019t know,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t have to fill out a form to say you\u2019re emigrating, you can just go. So there\u2019s no actual way of measuring.\u201d<\/p>\n

Homecoming Revolution does conduct qualitative studies, Jones said. It will for example contact estate agents and independent schools and ask if they have seen an increase in people selling their homes or taking their children out of school because they\u2019re leaving the country.<\/p>\n

But Jones cautioned against confusing enquiries in the property market, which the media often reports as high, with actual statistics or leaving. \u201cEnquiries tell us nothing\u2026 people panic and they enquire and then they don\u2019t actually move.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Conclusion: Data on South Africa\u2019s \u2018brain drain\u2019 not current<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a discussion on South Africa\u2019s economic struggles, a guest on the Money Show on 702 radio said that for every professional coming into South Africa, eight were leaving. The statistic was attributed to a 2017 government white paper on migration.<\/p>\n

We traced the original stat to a 2006 paper on South Africa\u2019s immigration policy. But the paper\u2019s authors told Africa Check that the data would not apply now. And emigration data is no longer recorded at ports of exit.<\/p>\n

A number of experts said reliable and up to date emigration data is therefore difficult to collect or estimate. Given this we rate this claim as unproven \u2013 evidence publicly available at this time neither proves nor disproves the statement.<\/p>\n

Until stronger official data on the movement of professionals into and out of South Africa is collected, we will remain with what the show\u2019s host Bruce Whitfield described as \u201canecdotal\u201d evidence of a spike.<\/p>\n

This report was written by Africa Check, a non-partisan fact-checking organisation. View the original piece on their website<\/a><\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Read: 5 scary facts about emigration in South Africa<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The claim that more professionals are leaving South Africa than coming in is based on data that’s over a decade out of date – but without newer, accurate data, experts are left guessing how big the country’s brain drain really is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":310426,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9876],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-318736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318736","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=318736"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318736\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":318796,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318736\/revisions\/318796"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}