Migration elicits diverse and often emotional responses. We find it concerning that so many South Africans emigrate, and seek to attract skilled migrants from elsewhere. We have high hopes that skilled migrants can create jobs, while we worry about unskilled migrants “stealing our jobs”. In this debate, skilled migrants are often presumed to be ‘legal’ and unskilled migrants ‘illegal’, but we are unclear about what exactly makes a migrant ‘skilled’ versus ‘unskilled’ – or even ‘legal’ or not. This lecture provides an integrative assessment of out-migration and in-migration, especially from an economic and scientific perspective, while also acknowledging its deep emotional dimension.
The UP Expert Lecture Series provides a public platform for UP researchers to engage with a general audience on significant developments in their fields of expertise that are likely to have an impact in the future. We invite you to participate in our hour-long Expert Lecture Series and to be enriched and informed by the University of Pretoria’s research output.
