Social capital as a survival strategy for immigrants in South Africa.

Abstract

South Africa is a receiving country to many of the foreign nationals especially from the South African Development Community countries. These migrants settle mainly in urban areas, particularly in the townships, in and around the Metropolitan area of Johannesburg located in the province of Gauteng. For these foreign nationals, social capital is a major survival strategy that is utilised when the migration decisions are made and to access employment, shelter as well as finance. This study aims to examine social capital as a survival strategy and to explore other forms of survival strategies that are used by foreign nationals in South Africa. As a subset, the study also seeks to explain whether social capital does facilitate continued migration to South Africa. The study emanates from literature that claims the benefits of social networks in enhancing economic activity and influences migration. Based on the understanding of the survival strategies and the forms of social capital networks used by foreign nationals, the research concludes that social capital influences migration patterns to South Africa. This paper presents a combination of cross sectional study and case study conducted in December 2013 through interviews and focus group discussions with both foreign national and South African national respondents. The data that was collected through semi-structured interviews to allow for probing and deeper understanding on both social capital and other survival strategies used by respondents. The data from the survey was recorded on paper and/or electronically recorded, transcribed, thematically arranged and the analysed to get the results presented in this study. The results of the study show that social capital is the main survival strategy among the foreign national especially at the point of entry into South Africa. Most of the respondents indicated that the use of social capital allowed them to access finance to travel to South Africa, shelter as well as employment. The findings also reveal that social capital is strengthened by the duration of stay in the study area and that one’s their ability to find better paying jobs is linked to social capital. Other survival strategies that are used by the foreign nationals include marriage, education, employment, language among others. The study concludes that foreign nationals use different survival strategies which are mainly facilitated through social capital networks which allows migration ease during transition and stay in South Africa. The findings of the study suggest that social capital will continue to facilitate continued migration to South Africa and this necessitates policy reforms in terms of migration and access to social services by the state.