Better opportunities abroad spur SA emigration – IRR

Better employment and career opportunities abroad is the most prominent reason why South Africans emigrate.

This emerges from data published by the Institute of Race Relations in the latest edition of Free Facts, titled “South Africans are leaving the country”.

More than a million South Africans have left the country since 1990.

While South Africa boasts the largest share of millionaires in Africa, with about 34% or 41,100 high-net worth individuals in this category, reports indicate that in the past 10 years, some 2,400 dollar millionaires have packed up and left.

Losses to emigration include 123,000 healthcare professionals between 2013 and 2025.

Most of emigrants moved to the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.

The IRR’s Diaspora Survey, run as part of its #WhatSACanBe campaign, sought to gain a better understanding of why people leave. Responses show that the most common reason – at 39.8% – relates to career and economic opportunities, with most respondents saying they left to pursue better work opportunities presented to them abroad. The second reason was crime and corruption, at 30.1%. A distant third, at 6.8%, was the state of race relations.

Says Makone Maja, IRR strategic engagements manager: “We are concerned that should these issues not be resolved – should our country fail to present compelling reasons for people to stay, and compete successfully with other countries for the education, skills and residency of our citizens – we risk forfeiting all of these qualities to countries that can offer people an overall better life.”

The desire to leave the country is significant; Afrobarometer found in 2022 that a quarter of the population, or 1 in four citizens, were considering emigration. Afrobarometer also found that 1 in every 20 people were in the process of making plans, such as beginning visa application processes, to leave the country.

Maja concludes: “Economic growth is how we reverse this trend of South Africans losing confidence in what their country can offer them and their children. When an economy grows, jobs are created and factors like crime and poverty are reduced.

“Barriers to the investment we need, such as race laws, insecure property rights, and corruption, are barriers to job creation, too. They keep us trapped in poverty and deny this country the very prosperity all South Africans desire. Removing these barriers is how we combat the challenges of skills flight, the brain drain and the loss of a key cohort of taxpayers – by making South Africa a country worth coming home to.”

The July Free Facts can be found here.

Media contact: Makone Maja, IRR Strategic Engagements Manager Tel: 079 418 6676 Email: makone@irr.org.za

Media enquiries: Michael Morris IRR Head of Media Tel: 066 302 1968 Email: michael@irr.org.za