Report unpacks SA’s significant brain-drain

Despite cheery anecdotal claims by estate agencies, tax practitioners and international moving companies that South Africans are returning to the country of their birth in droves, Stats SA’s evidence shows that far fewer Saffas are doing so. And the rising numbers of South Africans emigrating to the UK, Australia, and the US have helped boost those country’s populations by significant percentages. Stats SA’s long-awaited Migration Profile Report for South Africa: A Country Profile 2023 was finally released last week. Based on the latest census data, as well as data from household surveys, academic research, the World Bank, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Unesco, the SAPS and the departments of Home Affairs and Basic Education, the report was funded through the EU’s Southern Africa Migration Management Project. The Daily Maverick notes that SA’s first migration report shows the brain drain is significant and long-lasting, as reflected in the declining numbers of expats returning over the past decade. In 2000, 501 600 SA citizens resided abroad. By 2010, that number had increased to 743 807, and by 2020 – the latest available data from the UN Department of Economic & Social Affairs – their numbers had reached 914, 901. Europe is the most appealing region for residence, attracting 39.3% of migrants. North America’s share is at 18.1%; Oceania 29.9%; Asia 2.2%, and Latin America and the Caribbean 0.3%. Between 2011 and 2022, a sharply declining number of expats returned to give the country another try. In 2022, whites accounted for 52.9% of returnees, blacks for 37.1%, coloureds 4.9%, Indians/Asians 4.6%, and ‘other’ for 1.9%.