The role of migration in the development of cities cannot be downplayed. Migration across the globe helps break space and place isolation. In these migrant dynamics, women and most especially foreign migrants play a vital role. Various factors account for the migration of women within Africa. This chapter identifies the dichotomy in-country experiences by African immigrant women to South Africa and therefore attempts to examine the African women migration trend into South Africa. The questions that guide the study include, What is the migration trend and the push and pull factors for women immigrant into South Africa? The questions asked are to bring about a better understanding of the state of Africa women's immigrants into South Africa.
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Humans are fluid, dynamic, and transient. Migration helps break space and place isolation in development. The concept of migration has over the years caught the attention of development experts. This is germane, owing to the resource demand of the estimated average of one billion global migrants in both origin and destination countries. Food Agriculture and Organisation (2017, p.1) iterate the complexity and fundamental component of structural transformation in developing countries through migration. It was buttressed by the widespread migration (both internal and international) in Africa over the century.
Although migration is portrayed as a crisis and social problem for “host” countries (Antonsich, Mavroudi & Mihelj, 2016). Historic colonial trading activity (Gwendolyn & Elliott, 1983) individual economic challenges such as poverty, unemployment, homelessness (Zinyama, 1990) civil unrest, wars, and political instability (Clark, 1986) are amongst the factors that contribute to international relocation. The post-colonial pattern of such movement of labour (skilled and semi-skilled) is from rural to urban Africa or shared mobility from one African country to another. This was why African continent has been reported to be dynamic.
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTD) (2018) reported that in 2017, over 19 million international migrants within Africa are from African countries. Migration in Africa has been characterized by outflows, primarily to other countries on the continent, and to some extent other continental destinations. According to UNCTD (2018), the configuration of the top countries in Africa with the highest net migrant reception were South Africa (3.1 million), Côte d’Ivoire (1.2 million), Uganda (900,000), Libya (629,000), Kenya (577,000), Ethiopia (426,000), Chad (242,000), Gabon (213,000), Cameroon (206,000) and Tanzania (168,000). It was recorded that from 100 immigrants in Africa, 79 were Africans with females having a higher share and percentage. Female migration is growing in importance in Africa. Since 1990, the number of international female migrants increased from 7.4 million to 11.6 million in 2017. This trend is reflected in the corresponding increase in Africa’s female population, which rose from 318 million in 1990 to 629 million in 2017 (UNCTD, 2018).
Flahaux and Haas (2016) mentioned that due to poverty and violent conflict, Africa is seen as a continent of mass displacement and migration. This is reflected in the increasing quest for improved livelihood from within and across Africa. The assertion of the choice to migrate therefore reflects an individual conditioning and struggle for survival. This struggle when looked at from the rational choice theory presents a consciousness of an individual to migrate. This consciousness, as highlighted by Haug (2008) and McAuliffee and Kitimbo (2018), is defined by social networking capacity and place mental psychology which results into ‘mass exodus’ of Africans into Europe or away from their country of origin.
At a continental stage, migration in Africa can be classified into internal and international migration. United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) (2017) recorded that the capacity of African countries as a destination for migrants from fellow African countries and non-African cannot be ignored. Buttressing this assertion, the International Organisation of Migration (IOM) (2018) reported that migration in Africa involves large numbers of migrants moving both within and out of the region. UNDESA (2017) data show the importance of the Africa-to-Africa migration corridor. However, the report did not identify the factors that accounted for migration in Africa.
Mutume (2006) mentioned that issues such as human rights abuse, economic opportunity, labour shortages and unemployment, the brain drain, multiculturalism and integration, and flows of refugees and asylum seekers are peculiar characteristics of Africa migration. At national rural-urban migrant level, Popoola and Akande (2016) reported the effect of migration to influence food production, household income and remittance. Lending a voice to this, the factors of migration can be pull or push. Van Hear, Bakewell and Long (2018) wrote that explaining migration’s inception and perpetuation has conventionally focused on disparities in conditions between place of origin and place of destination. This negative (push away from origin) or positive (pull to destination) factors are often region and individual defined. In his own stand, Adepoju (2006) was of the notion that migration is a response to structural disequilibria between and within sectors of an economy or between countries, in which gender sometimes poses an advantage or disadvantage.