Journal Article
Fragmenting the family?

The disruption of family life is one of the important legacies of South Africa’s colonial and apartheid history. The marginalization of Africans in 'homelands' where there were few employment opportunities, forced Africans to migrate to “White” urban areas to find employment, but a range of restrictions prevented family migration or permanent settlement at the urban destination.

The migrant labor system meant that it was mainly men who worked in urban areas or on the mines, while the rural homelands became places for 'surplus' people whose labor contributions were not needed. Children formed a substantial part of that surplus population, along with women and the elderly.

Despite the removal of legal impediments to permanent urbanization and family co-residence for Africans in the late 1980s, patterns of internal and oscillating labor migration have endured. Along with neighboring countries that historically provided migrant labor, South Africa has uniquely high rates of parental absence from children’s lives.