South Africa Immigration

South Africa receives a relatively large number of immigrants from the Southern African region. As of 2019, the immigration rate is still rising, and the role of the female migrant population in this movement and settlement is expanding dramatically. The bulk of immigrants are working residents who have an impact on the existence of various industries in South Africa. This group's demographic background is heterogeneous, and the nations of origin are mostly from Sub-Saharan Africa, pushing migration south. Since the 1990s, a fraction of them have qualified as refugees.

Currently, immigration policy is to maintain existing immigration flows, despite the fact that the South African government has historically sought to restrict the number of immigrants. Since apartheid, several immigration regulations have changed. Some stances from the mid-to-late twentieth century, however, are still in place, and xenophobia is widespread.
In 2019, there were 4.2 million overseas migrants in South Africa (.
This accounts for around 7.2 percent of the total population, with approximately 2 million of these people being women. The total net migration rate is rising by 2.5 percent. Since the end of colonialism, the rate of female immigration has been increasing. The most common age categories among both male and female migrants are 25–34 and 35–44. In 2019, there were roughly 370 thousand refugees in South Africa, the bulk of whom came from neighbouring Sub-Saharan African nations.

Migrants in South Africa send more than $1 billion (USD) in remittances, accounting for 0.2 percent of the country's entire economy (measured by GDP). Mozambique, Lesotho, Eswatini (commonly known as Swaziland), Botswana, and Malawi have the greatest levels of remittances received from South Africa. Immigrants are more likely to be highly talented than non-foreign populations. However, it is normal for a highly skilled individual to be confined to low-skilled labour after emigrating to South Africa. Casual jobs, restaurant work, manufacturing, and construction are the most popular industries in which immigrants work. Around 10% of this population is jobless, which is much lower than the national average.

Black Africans account for around 79.6% of the population (as of 2007) and include Zulu, Xhosa, Ndebele, Tsonga, Venda, Pedi, Sotho, Tswana, and Swazi, as well as recent immigration from other African countries (particularly Zimbabwe, Nigeria and Democratic Republic of Congo). Whites account for 9.1% of the population (as of 2007), with descendants of Dutch, French, British, Irish, and German settlers arriving at the Cape from the mid- to late-seventeenth century, European immigrants arriving in South Africa in the twentieth century, and Portuguese who left the former Portuguese colonies of southern Africa (Angola and Mozambique) after their independence in the mid-1970s. Coloureds (8.8 percent, 2007 estimate) are mixed-race individuals who are mostly derived from the first settlers, their slaves, and indigenous peoples. The remaining 2.4 percent are classified as 'Indian/Asian,' which includes descendants of Indian indentured sugar estate labourers and traders who arrived to South Africa in the mid-nineteenth century (especially in Natal), as well as a few Chinese South Africans (approximately 250,000 - 350,000)

Testimonials

FAQs