Abstract
The study assessed return migration by heads of households that migrated during the prolonged crisis, 2000-16. It collected data among 166 households from four districts in South Eastern Zimbabwe. Most of the male household heads had previously migrated, half of them to South Africa. Non-migrant heads were mainly females who remained behind when their husbands migrated to South Africa or urban areas. Both heads who returned from migrating to South Africa and locally to urban areas came back during 2011-15 with the desire to reunite with families. This period was associated with severe retrenchments by Zimbabwean companies that attempted to survive the shrinking economy. Yet it was also an attractive period to return home for international migrants because of the stability brought by the adoption of multiple currencies. Xenophobic attacks in South Africa in 2015 also ‘pushed’ some of the heads into returning home. International return migrants were significantly younger and had lower levels of education than internal and non-migrants. Three-tenths of them returned into households having traditional huts as their main houses which suggested that migration was unsuccessful for them. There is a need for restoration of stability soon after a crisis since this helps attract back human capital.
Highlights
IntroductionEarlier migrants included unskilled and semi-skilled Zimbabweans who together with Zambians, Malawians and Mozambicans migrated or were forced into migration to work in South African mines or commercial farms during colonialism
There is a long history of migration from Zimbabwe especially from the southern districts to South Africa
This suggested that most of the household heads in these districts migrate to South Africa which confirmed other studies that argued that most Zimbabweans displaced by the crisis at home migrated to South Africa or Botswana (Crush and Tevera, 2010)
Summary
Earlier migrants included unskilled and semi-skilled Zimbabweans who together with Zambians, Malawians and Mozambicans migrated or were forced into migration to work in South African mines or commercial farms during colonialism This author included among the earlier migrants those young single men from southern Zimbabwe who migrated to South Africa in the late 1980s and 1990s after seeing signs of trouble in the Zimbabwean economy (Muzondidya, 2008). Recent migrants included several hundred thousands of Zimbabweans who escaped the political and economic crisis in Zimbabwe after 2000 This crisis ‘pushed’ into migration Zimbabweans of all walks of life including both the young and old, married and single, southerners and northerners, skilled and unskilled (Muzondidya, 2008). This crisis ‘pushed’ into migration Zimbabweans of all walks of life including both the young and old, married and single, southerners and northerners, skilled and unskilled (Muzondidya, 2008). Pasura (2008) estimated the number of Zimbabweans who left the country at about 3 to 4 million, which warranted use of the term ‘mass exodus
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