The Institute of Race Relations (IRR) is launching a Diaspora Survey this week as part of its #WhatSACanBe campaign to better understand South Africans’ reasons for packing up and settling elsewhere, and what the country needs to do to convince people to remain, or come back home.
The IRR notes that UN International Migrant Stock data shows that between 1990 and 2024 about 1,005,800 South Africans moved abroad.
The first big wave of departures was between 2000 and 2005, when roughly 119,000 left. The next was between 2020 and 2024, when just over 107,500 South Africans are recorded as having moved overseas.
Says IRR Strategic Engagements Manager Makone Maja: “The concern is not just that South Africans are taking their skills and taxes and investing them in their new host countries. It is also that they must have found their home country to be unconducive to their and their families’ leading productive and prosperous lives.
“Our sense is that countries abroad offer more employment opportunities and better-paying jobs. They offer efficient governance and value for money in terms of taxes paid for service delivery. They also provide security and law and order which keeps their crime rates low and their citizens safe. Refining our understanding of the contrast between South Africa’s performance and what people find in other countries will be essential in stopping the brain drain and motivating our citizens to stay,” Maja adds.
All South Africans abroad are invited to complete the Diaspora Survey, which can be found here.
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