Neoliberal Capitalism and Migration in the Global South: A Case of Post-ESAP Zimbabwe to South Africa Migration

Abstract Zimbabwe has been haemorrhaging via international migration, especially since the 1990s and 2000s. While there could be as many different reasons for this exodus of Zimbabweans as there are people emigrating, it is indisputable that the introduction of the Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (ESAP) in 1991 at the behest of the Bretton Woods Institutions forms the major causes. Zimbabwe used to be a migrant-sending as well as a migrant-receiving country, but after ESAP, the trends were outwards with barely any inward movements. Zimbabwe became not only a net exporter of labour, especially human capital, but it depleted its human resources capacity, perhaps beyond levels of easy recovery in the foreseeable future. The political economic factors resulting from ESAP-induced poverty drove a significant section of the population to the indignity and insecurity of migrant labour. Drawing from that experience, it could be claimed confidently that “migration and labour questions are two sides of the same coin” (Delgado, 2015: 26) driven by neoliberal capitalism.