Mines and migrants in South Africa
OA Version
Citation
Abstract
Between 1971 and 1978 wages of more than half a million nonwhite laborers
in the South African mines tripled in real terms. In the same period, the
nonwhites employed in the mines switched from being 62 percent foreign to 62
percent domestic. These changes followed a period -- from 1911 to 1971 -during
which real wages of black gold miners did not rise, and terminated
almost a century of reliance on foreign labor "reserves" for the majority of
such labor.
These dramatic events are examined here in the context of an econometric
model of the demand for labor by the South African mining sector from 1946 to
1980. This affords an unusual opportunity to study the demand side of a
market for internal and international migrants, in a society where racial
discrimination is formalized in- the apartheid system, where powerful mining
houses wield potential monopsony power, and political factors in the region
are major determinants of economic behavior.
To comprehend the derived demand for workers in this sector, it is
essential to outline at least certain aspects of the industry's organization
and that of the market for labor. This is undertaken in section I, section II
develops a stylized model, which is then estimated, from data described in
III, for the gold, diamond, coal and other minerals sectors separately in
section IV.
Description
African Studies Center Working Paper No. 106
License
Copyright © 1985, by the author.