Zimbabwe Census says 85% of 908k emigrants live in South Africa
The Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (ZimStats) said most citizens who left the country went to South Africa, Botswana and the United Kingdom.
The Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (ZimStat) released its preliminary report on migration on Tuesday, 6 September. The data was gleaned from the 2022 Population and Housing Census (PHC), which is taken every decade.
NEARLY ONE MILLION ZIMBABWEANS EMIGRATED
ZimStats said data on the number of people living outside Zimbabwe, who used to be members of the households polled in the 2022 PHC, were collected. “It was not possible to count migrants whose households were no longer in existence during the time of the census.”
The data indicated that most of the 908 913 people who left Zimbabwe remained in Southern Africa – in South Africa (773 246) and Botswana (47 928), in particular. The United Kingdom (23 166) was the place most emigrants went to if they left the continent.
Conversely, the census counted 236 246 people who were born outside Zimbabwe and the highest number of the foreign-born population came from South Africa (137 594), Mozambique (38 915) and Malawi (15 307).
MOST LEAVE ZIMBABWE FOR EMPLOYMENT
Most of the people who left Zimbabwe, emigrated in search of employment (761 548 out of 908 907) while 77 362 left for family reasons and 43 403 emigrated to study and further their education.
“Employment, education/Training and Family were the three major reasons for emigrating from Zimbabwe for both males and females. Ninety percent of male emigrants and 75 percent of female emigrants departed the country in search of employment,” explained ZimStats.
According to the data, emigration hit a peak in 2021 and has been increasing since the 1980s. “There was a sharp increase in the number of emigrants between 1980 and 1990 that was followed by a sharp decline between 1990 and 2000.”
Between 2001 and 2015, there was a steady flow of people leaving Zimbabwe, which was followed by a sharp increase that peaked in 2021.
90% OF ZIMBABWE EMIGRANTS WERE UNEMPLOYED
The overwhelming majority of emigrants (90.4%) aged 10 and older were unemployed when they left the country.
Professionals, Service and sales workers and Plant and machine operators and assemblers accounted for 58% of the employed emigrants.
This week, the Minister of Home Affairs, Aaron Motsoaledi, extended the Zimbabwe Exemption Permits (ZEP), which were going to expire at the end of 2022 by a further six months. It will now expire in June 2023. He said this will be the last extension.
Anti-migrant group, Operation Dudula, said it would approach the Constitutional Court to interdict the ZEP extension on an urgent basis.
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