Migration and Urbanization in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Although Africa has experienced rapid urbanization in recent decades, little is known about the process of urbanization across the continent. This paper exploits a natural experiment, the abolition of South African pass laws, to explore how exogenous population shocks affect the spatial distribution...

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Main Authors:	Bakker, Jan David, Parsons, Christopher, Rauch, Ferdinand
Format:	Journal Article
Published:	Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank 2021
Subjects:	MIGRATION URBANIZATION ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY NATURAL EXPERIMENT APARTHEID MOBILITY MIGRATION SHOCK
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/36721

id	okr-10986-36721
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-367212021-12-11T05:10:40Z Migration and Urbanization in Post-Apartheid South Africa Bakker, Jan David Parsons, Christopher Rauch, Ferdinand MIGRATION URBANIZATION ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY NATURAL EXPERIMENT APARTHEID MOBILITY MIGRATION SHOCK Although Africa has experienced rapid urbanization in recent decades, little is known about the process of urbanization across the continent. This paper exploits a natural experiment, the abolition of South African pass laws, to explore how exogenous population shocks affect the spatial distribution of economic activity. Under apartheid, black South Africans were severely restricted in their choice of location, and many were forced to live in homelands. Following the abolition of apartheid they were free to migrate. Given a migration cost in distance, a town nearer to the homelands will receive a larger inflow of people than a more distant town following the removal of mobility restrictions. Drawing upon this exogenous variation, this study examines the effect of migration on urbanization in South Africa. While it is found that on average there is no endogenous adjustment of population location to a positive population shock, there is heterogeneity in the results. Cities that start off larger do grow endogenously in the wake of a migration shock, while rural areas that start off small do not respond in the same way. This heterogeneity indicates that population shocks lead to an increase in urban relative to rural populations. Overall, the evidence suggests that exogenous migration shocks can foster urbanization in the medium run. 2021-12-10T18:13:47Z 2021-12-10T18:13:47Z 2020-06 Journal Article World Bank Economic Review 1564-698X http://hdl.handle.net/10986/36721 CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo World Bank Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Journal Article Africa Africa Eastern and Southern (AFE) South Africa
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
topic	MIGRATION URBANIZATION ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY NATURAL EXPERIMENT APARTHEID MOBILITY MIGRATION SHOCK
spellingShingle	MIGRATION URBANIZATION ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY NATURAL EXPERIMENT APARTHEID MOBILITY MIGRATION SHOCK Bakker, Jan David Parsons, Christopher Rauch, Ferdinand Migration and Urbanization in Post-Apartheid South Africa
geographic_facet	Africa Africa Eastern and Southern (AFE) South Africa
description	Although Africa has experienced rapid urbanization in recent decades, little is known about the process of urbanization across the continent. This paper exploits a natural experiment, the abolition of South African pass laws, to explore how exogenous population shocks affect the spatial distribution of economic activity. Under apartheid, black South Africans were severely restricted in their choice of location, and many were forced to live in homelands. Following the abolition of apartheid they were free to migrate. Given a migration cost in distance, a town nearer to the homelands will receive a larger inflow of people than a more distant town following the removal of mobility restrictions. Drawing upon this exogenous variation, this study examines the effect of migration on urbanization in South Africa. While it is found that on average there is no endogenous adjustment of population location to a positive population shock, there is heterogeneity in the results. Cities that start off larger do grow endogenously in the wake of a migration shock, while rural areas that start off small do not respond in the same way. This heterogeneity indicates that population shocks lead to an increase in urban relative to rural populations. Overall, the evidence suggests that exogenous migration shocks can foster urbanization in the medium run.
format	Journal Article
author	Bakker, Jan David Parsons, Christopher Rauch, Ferdinand
author_facet	Bakker, Jan David Parsons, Christopher Rauch, Ferdinand
author_sort	Bakker, Jan David
title	Migration and Urbanization in Post-Apartheid South Africa
title_short	Migration and Urbanization in Post-Apartheid South Africa
title_full	Migration and Urbanization in Post-Apartheid South Africa
title_fullStr	Migration and Urbanization in Post-Apartheid South Africa
title_full_unstemmed	Migration and Urbanization in Post-Apartheid South Africa
title_sort	migration and urbanization in post-apartheid south africa
publisher	Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank
publishDate	2021
url	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/36721
_version_	1764485769890627584

Migration and Urbanization in Post-Apartheid South Africa

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