ABSTRACT
It is the institutionalization and legal entrenchment of the migrant labour system, on racial lines, which is distinctively South African. No attempt is made here to deal with all dimensions of migrant labour in South Africa. Given age and sex selectivity of migrant labour, it is clear that well over half the younger men were absent from the homelands, as Nattrass concluded in 1970. Spatial patterns of migrant labour in South Africa have been examined by Board. In assessing disadvantages of migrant labour, it is important to make clear that the alternative with which comparison is being made is the effect of a permanent exodus of labourers and their families from the source areas, not simply the absence of any migration. Thus to concede that the homelands could not support their population in the absence of migration is no argument in favour of the migrant labour system; it is merely a reflection of legally imposed constraints on long term outmigration.
