Labour migration and households: A reconsideration of the effects of the social pension on labour supply in South Africa

This paper re-examines the effect of the South African social pension on the labour supply of working-age adults using data from 1993. We take account of the fact that households may include non-resident members, and therefore the pension may play a role in facilitating migration to work or look for work. We find that rural African women are significantly more likely to be migrant workers when they are members of a household in receipt of a pension, and that it is female pension income that drives this result. We explore a number of possible reasons why pension income might have this effect.