Document Type

Migration Policy Series

Publication Date

2022

Department

Balsillie School of International Affairs

Abstract

COVID-19 has been a great disrupter of international migration and a social and economic disaster for migrants. The findings in this report come from a household survey conducted by SAMP in mid-2021 in the South African cities of Cape Town and Johannesburg. The report argues that years of crisis-living in a hyperinflationary environment in Zimbabwe left many households in a pre-pandemic state of food insecurity and vulnerable to the pandemic shock. At the same time, the COVID-19 crisis reduced the ability of Zimbabwean migrant households in South Africa to assist family back in Zimbabwe. As well as contributing to greater awareness of the negative impacts of COVID-19 on migrants and refugees in Southern Africa, this report contributes to the more general discussion on pandemic precarity. First, it applies the concept of pandemic precarity to draw attention to pre-existing forms of socioeconomic insecurity and inequality among migrant households that have been exacerbated by COVID-19 shocks and stressors. Second, it recognizes that migrant households have trans-local householding commitments and obligations in their home countries. In the context of COVID-19, both have been negatively affected and need to be considered together to assess the full impact on food security. Finally, the report suggests that woman migrants and female-headed households were particularly vulnerable to pandemic impacts. By adopting a gender lens, the report demonstrates that pandemic precarity was a major challenge for women migrants and their dependants. The implications of precarity for trans-local households stretched between two or more countries are also clear from this analysis.

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