Social welfare policies and migration: examining the influence of social welfare policies, poverty and food security on domestic migration in South Africa

Abstract

The young democratic and developing Republic of South Africa has been under tremendous socio-economic challenges, across all provinces and in almost all key government departments. A country with so much rich history on social welfare sustainability and resilience has demonstrated quite an interesting case study. The widespread poor standard of living, underdeveloped rural and township areas and high levels of unemployment stand out as a huge factor for more people to migrate to big cities of South Africa. Approximately half of the population in South Africa live in tremendous poverty, with extraordinary income inequality and persisting food insecurity. As a result, South African big cities have escalating populations of domestic migrants. The implementation of social welfare policies after 1994 was a great proactive strategy for economic development in all parts of South Africa for people’s emancipation and self-development. Most of these social welfare policies played a key role to rescue the poorest of the poor from the thorns of poverty, food insecurity and basic medical care. However, in the current state of South Africa, some provinces of the country have stable economic activity, while others continue to buckle under horrific and perpetual poverty conditions.