In welk opzicht?
Human capital flight
There has been a large degree of human capital flight from South Africa in recent years.[4][5] To quote the first of the preceding references:
South Africa has lost 25% of its graduates to the United States alone. Moreover, South Africans account for 9.7% of all international medical graduates practicing in Canada. Out of all the medical graduates produced by the University of Witwatersrand in the last 35 years, more than 45% (or 2,000 physicians), have left the country. South Africa's Bureau of Statistics estimates that between 1 million and 1.6 million people in skilled, professional, and managerial occupations have emigrated since 1994 and that, for every emigrant, 10 unskilled people lose their jobs.[4]
There are a range of causes cited for the migration of skilled South Africans. In mid 1998, the Southern African Migration Project (SAMP) undertook a study to examine and assess the range of factors that contribute to skilled South Africans’ desire to leave the country:
Over two-thirds of the sample said that they had given the idea of emigration some thought while 38% said they had given it a "great deal of thought". Among the reasons cited for wishing to leave the country was the declining quality of life. Indeed, it is a common belief that the South African brain drain is heavily driven by perceptions of deteriorating quality of life since the demise of apartheid. There is general dissatisfaction with the cost of living, the level of taxation, safety and security, and the standard of public and commercial services in South Africa.
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Furthermore, the government's affirmative action policy was identified as another factor influencing the emigration of skilled white South Africans. The results of the survey indicate that skilled whites are strongly opposed to this policy and the arguments advanced in support of it.[5]
Indeed, it is often the case that South African debate on the brain drain tends to show the racial contours inherent in the South African flavour of global integration. The affirmative action policy in South Africa (see Black Economic Empowerment) acts to reduce the availability of work for those classified as white; a large component of the highly skilled group likely to be wealthy enough to consider emigration. Emigration of Africans with low levels of education is very low,[6] and it is well documented that the majority of the emigrating group are white, although black professionals show no qualms in cashing in their skills abroad.[5]
However, flight of human capital in South Africa should not be attributed solely to regional factors. For example the demand for skilled labourers in the UK, US, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia has led to active recruitment programs by those countries in South Africa. These countries accounted for 75% (by volume) of recent skilled emigration with the UK receiving approximately half of annual skilled South African emigration from 1990 to 1996.[5] It has been suggested that the role of domestic socio-political variables may be negligible:
The association of the brain drain with socio-political change has been so widely accepted that no one – so far – has challenged the trend exhibited by the official figures. However, the magnitude of the phenomenon has quickly been put into question. Doubts arose in the mid-90s as empirical findings indicated that the departures were far higher than what the Statistics South Africa figures stated. These studies were based on embassies or removal companies’ data showing that more people were leaving than the statistics mentioned. This evidence was later confirmed by a punctual statistical comparison between South African emigration data and South African registered immigration to countries such as Australia and the UK. Official agencies acknowledged the fact and recognised that their figures could only include the migrants who would declare themselves as such when leaving. However, the size of the undeclared emigrant population remained unknown. This dark side of the phenomenon had to be explored in order to bring the debate to more realistic grounds. This is where the new statistics – extracted from the receiving countries’ data – came into the picture. They showed that, even though the figures were much higher than reported by official South African data, the net loss had not begun with the political transition and was as much due to a decrease in immigration as to an increase in emigration. The concern then moved to the less emotional and more practical matter of reformulating the policy along this new perception. In this process the Ministry of Home Affairs has come under criticism. Since 1994, it has indeed followed a hard line approach towards immigration, with emphasis on controlling inflows of foreign citizens and limiting their presence and competition on the national labour market. This policy, trying to address a problem of widespread illegal immigration and consequent xenophobic trends, has been judged as inadequate regarding highly skilled people. There is now a consensus that they should rather be encouraged to come to South Africa. However, the debate continues, on the ways to make this happen. Indeed, several analysts think that the new law on immigration, coming late and with bureaucratic inertia, should be completed by more proactive dispositions, to look for skills instead of just facilitating their recruitments.[5]
A widespread skills drain in South Africa and in the developing world in general is generally considered to be a cause for concern.[7] While it may be the case that the economy will survive intact, the poor in South Africa undoubtedly suffer the most. The health sector has been hit particularly hard:
The report describes the exodus of healthcare workers from areas of poverty and low socio-economic development, to more highly developed areas. The flows follow a hierarchy of ‘wealth’ and result in a global conveyor belt of health personnel moving from the bottom to the top, increasing inequity. The report describes personnel flows and migration from rural to urban areas, from public to private sectors, from lower to higher income countries within southern Africa and from African countries to industrialised countries. International migration further increases and exacerbates inequities that exist between the public and private sector and between urban and rural areas. The knowledge and skills loss from the poorer to the richer countries is considered as a form of reverse (poor to rich) subsidy. There are a variety of push and pull factors that impact on the movement of healthcare workers, arising both within and beyond the health system. Factors endogenous to the health care system are low remuneration levels, work associated risks including of diseases like HIV/AIDS and TB, inadequate human resource planning with consequent unrealistic work loads, poor infrastructure and sub-optimal conditions of work. Exogenous push factors are also noted, including political insecurity, crime, taxation levels, repressive political environments and falling service standards. Movement is also influenced by pull factors, including aggressive recruitment by recipient countries, improved quality of life, study and specialisation opportunities and improved pay. [8]
This means that emigrating medical staff do not remain to assist in the fight against HIV/AIDS[9], exacerbating a dire situation; South Africa has the largest population living with AIDS in the world.[10]
[edit] Effect of HIV/AIDS
[edit] Prevalence rate
South Africa is the country with the largest number of HIV infections in the world. The country’s Department of Health estimates that 18.3% of adults (15–49 years) were living with HIV in 2006. More than half (55%) of all South Africans infected with HIV reside in the KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng provinces. Rising death rates lowered life expectancy at birth from 59 years in 1990 to 49 years in 2006 for males and from 67 years in 1990 to 52.5 years in 2006 for females.[11][12]
HIV prevalence among pregnant women is highest in the populous KwaZulu-Natal province (37%), and lowest in the Western Cape (13%), Northern Cape (16%) and Limpopo (18%) provinces. In the five other provinces (Eastern Cape, Free State, Gauteng, Mpumalanga and North West) at least 26% of women attending antenatal clinics in 2006 tested HIV-positive.
The latest HIV data collected at antenatal clinics suggest that HIV infection levels might be levelling off, with HIV prevalence in pregnant women at 30% in 2005, 29% in 2006, and 28% in 2007. The decrease in the percentage of young pregnant women (15–24 years) found to be infected with HIV also suggests a possible decline in the annual number of new infections.[13]
[edit] Impact
HIV/AIDS has a tremendous impact on all sectors of the South Africa's economy, this includes microeconomic and macroeconomic perspectives. A study on its economic impact[14] singles out the following effects:
A decline in total labour supply
A decline in labour productivity resulting from HIV/AIDS-related morbidity
Increased production costs, prices, and a decline in aggregate demand, savings and investment
Increased household expenditure
Increased government expenditure
To put a price tag to the claim of increased operation cost, Daimler-Chrysler South Africa evaluated in 2002 that every new employee infection costs the company an average of US$ 31,000.[15]
[edit] The electrical crisis
In 2007 the state-owned electricity supplier (Eskom) started experiencing a lack of capacity in the electrical generating and reticulation infrastructure. This led to an inability to meet the routine demands of industry and consumers, resulting in countrywide rolling blackouts. Initially the lack of capacity was triggered by a failure at Koeberg nuclear power station, but since then a general lack of capacity became evident. The supplier has been widely criticised for failing to adequately maintain existing power stations or plan for and construct sufficient electrical generating capacity.[16]
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