Migration and resilience of rural households’ livelihoods in the face of changing political and economic contexts: The case of South Mozambique (1900–2010)

ABSTRACT

This article investigates how labour migrations of rural households from Leonzoane in Southern Mozambique have changed since the colonial period to a post-war (1992) and post-apartheid (1994) context and their links with livelihoods restructuring. It draws on a qualitative analysis of the features of labour migrations, through a sample of households on five generations. Results reveal the evolution of men’s forms of mobility from longstanding circular and formal migrations to South Africa’s mines, toward multi-sited, informal, and more flexible migrations into mining and other sectors. These renewed forms of mobility are a core element of households’ livelihoods restructuring, as part of strategies to adapt the changing political-economic constraints of the broader globalising environment in terms of increasing informal and volatile labour conditions. The article concludes with a call for further analysis and integration of migration features in development policies.

KEYWORDS:

• labour migration
• rural households
• livelihoods
• historical perspective
• political economy
• working conditions
• Mozambique
• South Africa

Acknowledgements

This research has been supported by IESE (Instituto de Estudos Sociais e Ecocomicos) in Mozambique and ACMS (African Centre for Migration and Society) at the University of the Witwatersrand. The authors thank in particular CN Castel Branco, A Segatti and LB Landau for their support regarding scientific guidance and provision of facilities.

Notes on Contributors

Sara Mercandalli is a researcher from CIRAD, seconded to GovInn at the University of Pretoria. She is a development economist, specialised in agriculture and rural development. Her research has focused on labour migration and rural households’ livelihoods in sub-Saharan Africa looking in particular at the migration development nexus in the context of sub-Saharan demo-economic transition. More recently, she has been expanding her research angle towards issues related to employment and structural change in rural areas, with a public policy analysis focus.

Ward Anseeuw, a development economist and policy analyst, is a research fellow at the Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD) seconded to the Post-Graduate School of Agriculture and Rural Development of the University of Pretoria.

Notes

1. The term of ‘labour migration’ refers to migrations as economic activities linked to an economic sector and conditions of employment. These migrations are intertwined with socio-spatial mobilities defined as movements in the physical space, regardless of duration, distance or the means used.

2. Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Botswana, South Africa.

3. A formal activity is defined here as one with a legal labour contract or professional status, as well as with a legal work permit in the case of labour migration activities.

4. The first phase of working life (first ten years) responds to the necessary time to observe the strategies and the initial conditions of insertion in active life, as well as the main related assets (familial network, information, income). This allows comparing the features of the 20–30 years age group – which means duration of working life is 7.8 years – with the other groups.

5. The convention of 1928 established: ‘after a man had been at work for nine months, half his wages were withheld and transferred to the Mozambican government at the official exchange rate, to be handed over by Portuguese officials on his return home’ (Diario do Governo, Convenção, 30 November 1928).

6. Xìbàlu was officially abolished in 1961 when Portugal joined the ILO, but in practice forced labour continued in Mozambique until independence in 1975 (Norman 2004).

7. Diario do Governo, ‘Convenção entre o Governo da Republica portuguesa e o Governo da União da Africa do Sul’, 30 November 1928.

8. 78 people from Morrumbene District bordering Massinga District.

9. The use of Mozambican railways and ports decreased dramatically.

10. Hardly 50 per cent of the area that had been cultivated commercially during the colonial period had been put into use.

11. Of the planned 15,000 cooperatives, only 350 had been set up by 1983.

12. Personal communication, A João, Leonzoane, 2010.

13. Personal communication, J Vilakulos, Leonzoane, 2010.

14. 2.7 per cent per annum between 1995 and 2002.

15. Personal communication, L Muzonda, Rustenburg, 2010.

16. Security guard, petrol station worker.

17. Action Plan to Reduce Absolute Poverty 2006–2009 (Plano de Acção para a Redução da Pobreza Absoluta, PARPA II).

18. Republic of Mozambique. Letter of Intent, Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies, and Technical Memorandum of Understanding 24 May 2010.

19. Even with a major increase in industrial sector wage jobs, Mozambique cannot create jobs fast enough to absorb all new entrants (World Bank 2008).