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A Town is Just a Town: Poverty and Social
Relations of Migration in Namibia
Inge Tvedten
To cite this article: Inge Tvedten (2004) A Town is Just a Town: Poverty and Social Relations
of Migration in Namibia, Canadian Journal of African Studies/La Revue canadienne des études
africaines, 38:2, 393-423, DOI: 10.1080/00083968.2004.10751290
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00083968.2004.10751290
Published online: 30 Oct 2013.
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393
A Town is Just a Town: Poverty and Social
Relations of Migration in Namibia
Inge Tvedten
Résumé
Les théories conventionnelles de migration rurale-urbaine se concentrent
sur les conditions structurelles et les opportunités économiques à la
disposition des migrants individuels, pour expliquer pourquoi les gens
vont vers les villes. Une restructuration plus récente et des théories tenant
compte des sexes en ont élargi la portée, mais en ont retenu le principe
fondamental que les facteurs de force [push] et dattraction [pull]
conduisent à des mouvements de populations soit définitifs soit oscilla-
toires entre la ville et la campagne. Pourtant, le processus actuel de lur-
banisation de la pauvreté en Afrique plus de la moitié des pauvres du
continent vivra bientôt dans les petites et grandes villes signifie que les
facteurs dattraction traditionnels tels que lemploi, le revenu, laccès aux
services sociaux et une vie urbaine intéressante, ont perdu de leur valid-
ité. Malgré le danger de finir chômeurs dans les quartiers insalubres qui
sétalent de plus en plus, les gens de la campagne continuent démigrer
dans les centres urbains. Pour ce qui est de la Namibie et des études de cas
sur les relations sociales de la migration, cet article affirme que la migra-
tion vers la petite ou la grande ville devrait être considérée comme un des
éléments dune stratégie complexe dadaptation impliquant les unités
sociales à la fois urbaines et rurales. Si ce point de vue a été depuis
longtemps avancé dans lanthropologie de la migration, on na pas
accordé assez dimportance au rôle de la seule pauvreté. Les migrants les
plus pauvres sont dans limpossibilité de maintenir des liens avec leurs
régions rurales dorigine, ce qui contribue à leur marginalisation et à leur
appauvrissement.
Introduction
Southern Africa is currently the most urbanised region in sub-
Saharan Africa, with forty-eight percent of its population living in
cities and towns. With the current urban growth rate, sixty percent
of the population will live in urban areas by 2025 (United Nations
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394 cjas / rcea 38: 2 2004
2000). Keeping pace has been a rising level of urban poverty, as
evidenced by the sprawling informal settlements in most towns
and cities (UNCHS 1996), often attributed to urban population
growth, the crisis of unemployment, and the scale of housing and
environmental problems. More than fifty percent of the poor in
Southern Africa are expected to live in towns and cities by 2025
(Kamete, Tostensen and Tvedten 2001).
Despite this urbanisation of poverty, and the dismal future
awaiting the majority of town dwellers in Southern Africa, urbani-
sation rates have not slowed down. The annual growth rate in the
region for the period 2000-10 has been projected at 3.2 percent
(United Nations 2000). Yet analyses of migration continue to focus
on structural causes or individual migrants making rational
economic choices between push and pull factors (Gugler 1997;
de Haan 1999). Clearly, such economistic theories cannot
adequately explain continued urbanisation in the face of growing
urban poverty.
Based on field research in Namibia which is among the least
urbanised countries in the region, albeit with one of the highest
annual urban population growth rates this article will argue that
urban migration should be seen as part of a complex coping strat-
egy involving both rural and urban social units. Urban-rural social
links are central to the decision to move, as well as to coping strate-
gies once settled in town. Focusing on the social relations of migra-
tion also reveals how the poorest sections of the urban population
are unable to fill such relationships with material content and fulfil
what James Scott (1985, 237) has called minimal cultural decencies
weakening rural relationships and further contributing to the
marginalisation and impoverishment of poor urban as well as rural
households.
The first part of the article places the issue of urban migration
into a theoretical perspective; the second part gives an overview of
urban Namibia; and the third and final part focuses on the nature
of urban migration and urban-rural social links with particular
reference to the capital Windhoek and the town of Oshakati in
northern Namibia. The Owambo saying, A Town is Just a Town
(odolopa odoolopa ashike), selected as the title of this article,
reflects the decreasing attraction of urban life and modernity with
the increasing urbanisation of poverty.
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Urban Migration and Poverty
Relatively little recent research has been done on internal migra-
tion flows in developing countries (UNCHS 1996). The studies that
do exist imply that urban migration is increasingly diverse and
complex (de Haan 1999). On the one hand, the causes of migration
involve a variety of factors including: (1) catastrophes such as wars,
drought, and floods; (2) regional inequalities of economic develop-
ment and income; (3) high population pressures; (4) low agricultural
productivity; (5) poverty and hunger in specific regions; and (6)
attraction of towns as centres of employment, education, and social
amenities. On the other hand, the migrants themselves are varied,
for instance in terms of age, level of education, and socio-economic
background. Recent studies have also demonstrated that female
migration is of much greater volume and complexity than was
previously believed, and differs from that of men in its form,
composition, causes, and consequences (Chant 1992; Hugo 1995).
Recent literature has also reflected an increasing preoccupation
with the extent and nature of urban poverty. Much of the debate is
concerned not so much with estimating urban povertys scale as
with questioning the bases upon which poverty estimates are made
(Wratten 1995). This literature discusses classical definitions of
poverty and how minimum income and consumption require-
ments differ in rural and urban areas, but also addresses the issues
of deprivation (isolation and powerlessness) and vulnerability
(insecurity and exposure to risk, shocks and stress). For instance,
Caroline Moser (1996, 24) sums up the notion of vulnerability as
the well being of individuals, households and communities in the
face of a changing environment and argues that urban populations
are particularly vulnerable due to the rapid economic and sociocul-
tural change associated with the urbanisation process. Even when
using classical criteria of minimum levels of income and
consumption, however, there is general agreement that the number
of urban dwellers living in absolute poverty has grown considerably
during the 1980s and 1990s (Kamete, Tostensen and Tvedten 2001).
In short, the literature suggests that people in Southern Africa
continue to move to urban areas despite the real risks of not
succeeding in an increasingly harsh social and economic environ-
ment. At the same time, however, people do not migrate to town by
accident, but because they believe that towns can offer opportuni-
Tvedten: A Town is Just a Town 395
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ties they do not find in the rural areas and that they will be able to
find a way to take advantage of these opportunities.
The changing urban environment decline in levels of formal
employment, increase in informal sector employment, deterio-
ration in the quality and distribution of housing and basic services,
and decrease in the quality of the built and natural urban environ-
ment has important implications for the migration strategies of
first-generation urbanites, and for their survival strategies once
they are settled in an urban environment. Social links between
rural and urban areas are becoming increasingly important to the
initial decision to move, to immediate strategies related to shelter
and employment, and to longer-term urban survival strategies.
These links have always been there (Baker and Aina 1995), but they
have been transformed by the context of the new urban crisis.
The urban population is not primarily rural people in an urban
context, as argued in the earlier literature from Southern Africa
referred to above, but urban people trying to handle relations with
a rural context upon which they depend.
Recent studies from South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Malawi
emphasise how rural relationships mediate the adverse economic
circumstances imposed upon urban populations by structural
adjustment policies, high urban unemployment, and the rising cost
of living (Andersson 2001); how the continued significance of the
village not only include economic relations but also deep cultural
and moral issues centred around witchcraft and funerals in a way
that makes them inseparable (Englund 2002); and how people circu-
late within a limited social and geographical field to gain access to
a range of networks and relationships through a strategy of double
rootedness (Bank 1997, 24).
This study from urban and rural Owambo in northern Namibia
shows how increasing urban poverty weakens these links as people
cannot fill them with material content and live up to social and
cultural expectations in their relations with the rural areas. The
gradual weakening of the urban and rural links reaches a cut-off
point beyond which they are very difficult to repair questioning
the general assumption that migration is a central element in the
livelihoods of poor as well as rich households in developing coun-
tries (de Haan 1999).
Theoretically, two strands have traditionally dominated stud-
CJAS382x4" 3/1/05 2:36 PM Page 396
ies of internal migration patterns. In neo-classical or equilibrium
models of migration, population movement is to be understood as
a rational, individual response to the disparities in labour produc-
tivity and labour returns between the subsistence economy of rural
areas and the monetary economy of modern urban areas. The
models highlight the importance of rational calculations and deci-
sions of individuals, which lead to the geographic movement of
labour into higher wage regions (Harris and Todaro 1970; Todaro
1971). While neo-classical studies have rightly concentrated on the
rationality of individual decision-making, they have been criticised
for isolating economic decision-making from the social and politi-
cal context within which the decisions are made (de Haan 1999).
In the structuralist models, migration is to be understood at the
level of structure, in the Marxist tradition as part of the organisa-
tion and reorganisation of capitalist development (Safa 1982;
Standing 1985). Migration arises from the spatial distribution of
labour requirements among the different sectors of national and
international economies. More recently, structural models have
come to include differentials in public expenditures and invest-
ments between rural and urban areas, unequal employment oppor-
tunities in both the formal and informal sectors, and
environmental conditions including land rights. The main criti-
cism levelled against the structural models has been the inade-
quate attention that they pay to individual strategies within the
existing structural framework, and hence the inability to explain
differences in levels and patterns of migration within geographical
areas and social groups (de Haan 1999).
More recently, two additional models of migration have been
identified. One is referred to as the structuration model, which
responds to the critique of the traditional models by emphasising
the complex interaction between agent and structure (Giddens
1987; Chant and Radcliffe 1992). In this model, the structural
causes of labour market formation and uneven spatial distribution
are combined with an awareness of the highly selective individual
responses of Third World inhabitants faced with a number of alter-
native strategies for survival. The second recent model introduces
gender as a central variable (Chant 1992; Wright 1995). Gender-
informed models criticise the neo-classical assumption that men
and women are subject to the same motivations to migrate and the
Tvedten: A Town is Just a Town 397
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398 cjas / rcea 38: 2 2004
structuralist tendency to disregard women, particularly in descrip-
tions of how capitalism use agricultural communities to provide
for the reproduction of male labour power in the modern wage-
labour economy.
Anthropology has long argued that the hegemonic models
referred to above suffer from inadequate attention to the social rela-
tions of migration. Human relationships and family networks are
central to peoples decision to move and to their coping strategies
once in town. These reciprocal relations represent intangible assets
(claims that can be made for help or resources when in need) that
may be at least as central to survival as the tangible assets (savings,
stores, and resources already in possession) that normally are the
focus of traditional approaches. Reciprocal relations have their
origin in rural-urban family links, in kin and place of origin, and in
more recently formed urban relations (Moser 1996, 11).
In the African context, studies of urban migration and
networks were pioneered by British anthropologists working in
Southern and Central Africa from the 1940s (Mitchell 1969). They
described a situation of deteriorating urban-rural relations and a
decline of tradition, which lead to the famous postulate a towns-
man is a townsman and a tribesman is a tribesman (Gluckman
1961). Equally relevant is the work from East London in South
Africa (Readers 1961; Mayer 1963; Pauw 1963), in which the
authors argue that while some migrants do indeed become towns-
men (school migrants) others maintain strong social and cultural
links with the rural areas of origin (red migrants).
Political and economic events in the 1960s and 1970s turned
attention away from the social relations of migration, in its classi-
cal anthropological sense, to modes of production and theories of
underdevelopment. Bernard Magubane (1971) criticised the anthro-
pology of migration for failing to situate its analysis within a
broader political economy of labour migrancy and colonial
exploitation, and for its unilineal model of cultural development
that constituted European civilisation and westernisation as the
desired end point of African cultural development.
The post-modern-age of the 1980s and 1990s saw a renewed
interest in the issue of networks and migration. A number of
important studies have emerged from Southern Africa, most of
which reveal a common perception of close links and mutual
CJAS382x4" 3/1/05 2:36 PM Page 398
dependency between urban and rural areas and in line with post-
modern thought perceptions of the rural and the urban as consti-
tuting a single social universe, encompassing both rural and urban
geographical spaces (Andersson 2001, 84). Consequently Jens
Andersson continues, dichotomies of rural and urban economic
sectors, centre and periphery, elite and mass are of little impor-
tance. While these studies remain useful as corrections to the
classical migration studies referred to above, they have a common
problem of not paying sufficient attention to poverty or class in the
sense of a set of different positions on a scale of social advantage
confirming Bruce Knaufts (1997, 286) argument that class back-
ground is undervalued in contemporary anthropology. In Owambo,
urbanisation and poverty entail a process of commodification of
social relations between the urban and the rural that has profound
implications for the ability to maintain and develop mutually
supportive relationships.
Urban Namibia
In order to assess the link between social relations and poverty for
migration in Namibia, it is useful to provide a brief overview of
urban history, the main urban centres, and socio-economic condi-
tions in the countrys cities and towns. The picture emerging is one
of slow and controlled urbanisation until Independence in 1990,
followed by a dramatic increase in urbanisation and socio-
economic differentiation among the urban population since
Independence underlining my point about the urbanisation of
poverty.
Urban History
Namibias pre-colonial population did not develop larger popula-
tion centres as did Zimbabwe, South Africa, and Angola (Tarver
1994). The main reasons for this were the small population, envi-
ronmental conditions that favoured neither the concentration of
people nor the creation of a sufficient economic surplus to main-
tain specialised urban functions, and the populations marginal
location in relation to regional trade and migration routes.
The emergence of urban settlements in Namibia is thus largely
a phenomenon of the colonial era, evolved on the basis of two
dissimilar developments (du Pisani 2000). In the central and south-
Tvedten: A Town is Just a Town 399
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400 cjas / rcea 38: 2 2004
ern parts of the country, urban settlements developed as commer-
cial and administrative centres first under the German (1842-1915)
and then under the South African colonial regime (1915-90). The
Germans established commercial centres in their attempts to
become less dependent on the German economy. South Africa was
initially less interested in developing such centres beyond what
was necessary to administer the territorial economy. However, a
new growth point policy was established in the early 1960s,
aimed at proving to the international community that South Africa
was serious about developing the territory.
Throughout the German and South African era, permanent
African urbanisation was discouraged, with a web of laws (includ-
ing pass laws and prohibition of property ownership) controlling
most aspects of the life of the African residents (Moorsom 1995).
The African population was allowed to move into towns as labour-
ers for limited periods of time, and lived in separate areas (loca-
tions) with housing and services inferior to that of the white areas.
The large majority of those moving to the apartheid towns were
men working in white trade and industries, while a small
number of women were mainly domestic workers.1
In the northern communal areas, urbanisation was a much
later phenomenon. Although more than seventy percent of the
population lived in the north, the lack of public as well as private
investments effectively hindered such a development and main-
tained the north as a labour pool for urban industries elsewhere
(Hishongwa 1992). Urban areas proper did not develop until the
1960s, as a response to administrative and military requirements
by the South African colonial state. Towns were established as
centres for the homelands created by the Odendaal Commission in
1964, with basic facilities such as government departments, hospi-
tals, police stations, and schools. The towns expanded largely as a
result of the increased militarisation of the northern areas and
South African military incursions into Angola from the mid 1970s
onwards (Hangula 1993).
Also these towns became effectively segregated, between
formal and fully serviced white towns and illegal and under-
services informal settlements. Formal townships (locations) for
the African population were also established, but on a much
smaller scale than in the central and southern parts of the country.
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The urban population in the north was made up of a mixture of
soldiers working for the South African Defence Force, people work-
ing in trade and industries servicing the military structures, and
people fleeing the war in the rural areas both in Namibia and in
southern Angola.
The process of urbanisation through separate development was
progressively tightened up until the beginning of the 1980s, when
influx control measures were abolished through a General Law
Amendment Proclamation (Simon 1988). People could then move
freely to towns and in principle settle where they wanted, but the
employment situation and the economic conditions in general
inhibited larger scale urbanisation before Independence in 1990.
At the time of Independence, the majority of the urban popula-
tion still lived in the central and southern part of the country. As
seen from Table 1, the rate of urbanisation ranges from eighty-eight
percent in the Khomas region to nil in the regions of Ohangwena
and Omusati, with the national average being twenty-eight
percent. Notably, the regions with the largest population and high-
est population density also have the lowest rate of urbanisation.
Tvedten: A Town is Just a Town 401
Table 1 Urbanisation in Namibia by Region
Region Urban Urban Population Localities with
Population Population density Population
(%) (per km2) +2000
Namibia 382 680 28 1 700 51
Karas 22 732 37 400 4
Hardap 29 020 44 600 5
Khomas 147 056 88 4 400 3
Erongo 35 062 63 900 6
Otjozondjupa 47 021 46 900 5
Omaheke 8 340 16 600 4
Oshikoto 16 211 13 4 800 2
Oshana 35 726 26 26 000 6
Omusati 0 000 0 15 100 2
Ohangwena 0 000 0 17 900 7
Okavango 19 366 17 2 700 3
Caprivi 13 377 15 4 900 1
Kunene 8 769 14 500 3
Source: Tvedten and Moputola (1995)
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402 cjas / rcea 38: 2 2004
Main Urban Centres
During the first decade of independence, migration to cities and
towns continued unabated particularly in the northern parts of
Namibia, changing the urban landscape of the country.2 An esti-
mated thirty-two percent of the population currently live in cities
and towns (EIU 2001). Windhoek is by far the largest urban centre
in the country, with an estimated population in 2000 of 259 000
(Tvedten and Mupotola 1995).3 Windhoek functions as a primate
city both politically, economically, and in terms of socio-cultural
organisation and perceptions. No other country in Southern Africa
has such a large proportion of its urban population living in the
capital. The second major urban growth point is Walvis Bay. The
population has increased considerably since Walvis Bay became an
integral part of Namibia in 1994, and is currently estimated at 35
000. Other municipalities and towns in the former commercial
areas seem to have experienced a modest growth and in some cases
(such as Tsumeb, Mariental and Usakos) even a stagnant or decreas-
ing population.
In the former communal areas, the urban population live in six
designated towns. The urban population growth is lowest in the
towns of former Owambo (Oshakati, Ondangwa, Ongwediva) even
though this is the most densely populated area in Namibia with
forty-five percent of the countrys population (Tvedten and
Moputola 1995; Melber 1996). The main reason for this is that
people from Owambo tend to continue migrating directly to
Windhoek and other towns in the central parts of the country.
Assuming an urbanisation rate of 4.5 percent, the current popula-
tion in Oshakati is 32 100, in Ongwediva 9 200 and in Ondangwa
11 800.
The urbanisation rate since independence has been higher in
the regional capitals of Okavango, Caprivi, and Kunene. The large
majority of the people migrating to these towns come from the
region itself, with an additional influx by illegal migrants from
Angola and Zambia. Assuming an urbanisation rate of 6.5 percent,
Katima Mulilo has a current population of 19 900; Rundu has 28
800; and Opuwo has 6 300 (Devereux et al. 1993; Graefe et al. 1994).
Table 2 shows the projected population of the eight largest
towns in Namibia, again assuming an urban growth rate of 4.5
percent for the slowest growing and 6.5 percent for the fastest grow-
CJAS382x4" 3/1/05 2:36 PM Page 402
ing urban centres respectively. With such a growth rate, the four
fastest growing towns represent as much as fifty-eight percent of
the total urban population in Namibia. Windhoek alone represents
forty-one percent.
Socio-economic Conditions
In general terms, the urban population in Namibia is characterised
by an older age structure, a larger proportion of males than females,
smaller households, and a larger proportion of people in formal
wage work than in the rural areas (NPC/CSO 1996). In terms of
demographic composition, the average age is close to twenty-two
years in urban areas and seventeen years in the rural areas. There is
a male surplus in urban areas of 110 males for every 100 females, as
against female surplus of 110 for every 100 males in rural areas. The
average household size is 5.4 persons in rural areas and 4.7 persons
in urban areas, and female-headed households represent forty-one
percent and thirty-one percent of the total number of households in
rural and urban areas respectively. The age distribution in urban
areas is particularly noteworthy. There is an urbanisation peak
in the age group twenty-five to thirty-nine years. In this group,
forty-five percent of all men and thirty-seven percent of all women
live in urban areas. In terms of employment and income, labour
force participation is higher in urban (sixty-eight percent) than in
rural areas (forty-eight percent). About twenty-five percent of the
population over fifteen years of age in urban areas are unemployed,
Tvedten: A Town is Just a Town 403
Table 2 Population projections for the eight largest towns in Namibia
Municipality/ Town Growth-rate Population Estimated Estimated
(%) 1991 Population Population
1995 2000
Windhoek 6.5 147 056 189 183 259 197
Walvis Bay 6.5 30 452 39 175 53 674
Oshakti 4.5 21 603 22 575 32 104
Rehobot 4.5 21 439 25 566 31 860
Rundu 6.5 19 366 23 100 28 800
Swakopmund 4.5 17 681 21 085 26 276
Tsumeb 4.5 16 211 19 322 24 091
Keetmanshoop 4.5 15 032 17 926 22 339
Source: Tvedten and Moputola (1995)
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404 cjas / rcea 38: 2 2004
and forty-six percent are underemployed. The corresponding
figures for rural areas are sixteen and fifty-four percent. In other
words, the combined unemployment and underemployment rates
are not significantly different in urban and rural areas. The main
source of household income in urban areas is cash wages (seventy-
seven percent), with informal businesses, pensions and cash remit-
tances being additional sources. In rural areas, fifty-one percent of
the households have subsistence farming as a main source of
income, with cash wages (twenty-seven percent) and pensions
(fourteen percent) being sources of less importance.
The economically active population in Namibia is thus
concentrated in urban areas, while there is a disproportionate
number of economically inactive youngsters and older people in
the rural areas. At the same time, the dependence on cash wages in
urban areas underlines the individual vulnerability in an urban
environment where access to employment is rapidly decreasing.
This is reflected in differences in socio-economic conditions
between different urban areas, as well as between formal and infor-
mal settlement areas within the same municipality or town.
Within municipalities and towns, the main indication of the
differences found is the expanding informal settlement areas.4
Urbanisation in Namibia is linked to significant changes in the
social organisation of neighbourhoods, families and households.
Congestion and economic hardships tend to make social units
unstable, and many poor urban areas are severely affected by crime
and social unrest. Some towns (like Walvis Bay) actively discourage
uncontrolled settlement of this type, but most of them have seen
uncontrolled settlements grow at an alarming rate. Table 3 shows
the estimated proportion of the population in the three largest
towns in the north and south respectively living in informal settle-
ment areas.
There are thus reasons to state that poverty in Namibia is
becoming urbanised. As argued in a study on poverty in Namibia
for the average unskilled shanty town dweller,
... competition for employment is fierce, wages are low, and
many are forced to eke out a subsistence in the urban informal
sector. The informal sector itself is underdeveloped, with an
overemphasis on petty-commodity trading which, in many
quarters, has reached saturation point. Urban poverty is thus a
CJAS382x4" 3/1/05 2:36 PM Page 404
growing phenomena in Namibia and the situation is likely to
deteriorate further if employment opportunities are not created
in both rural and urban areas (Devereux et al. 1993, 41).
Urban Migration
Urban migration in Namibia is best examined in three stages, each
based on different perspectives and methodologies. First, the issue
of urban migration is examined from a national and structural
perspective through the Namibian Population and Housing Census
(NPC/CSO 1994). Second, social relations of migration to the capi-
tal Windhoek is assessed through a quantitative study on house-
hold opportunity situations (Peyroux and Graefe 1995). Third,
social relations of migration is assessed through qualitative data
and case-studies on urban migration to the town of Oshakati in
northern Namibia (Tvedten and Pomuti 1994; Tvedten and
Nangulah 1999). While surveys and quantitative data are necessary
to ascertain the broader picture of migration, urbanisation and
socio-economic conditions, participant observation, qualitative
interviews, and participatory research have been necessary to grasp
deeper socio-cultural causalities. Fieldwork in Oshakati and two
villages in Owambo have yielded important information on social
relationships and peoples own perceptions of migration and
poverty being crucial for their own strategies and actions.
Migration Patterns
National data on migration in Namibia are limited, and the
phenomenon was inadequately treated in the 1991 census
(NPC/CSO 1994; see also Frayne and Pendleton 1998). The census
Tvedten: A Town is Just a Town 405
Table 3 Estimated population living in informal settlement areas in major
Namibian towns
Municipality/town Total population (2000) Informal settlements (%)
Windhoek 259 197 30%
Walvis Bay 53 674 15%
Rehobot 31 860 15%
Oshakati 32 104 60%
Rundu 34 134 75%
Katima Mulilo 21 350 75%
Source: Tvedten and Moputola (1995)
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406 cjas / rcea 38: 2 2004
data do not capture migrants moving to towns in the same region
(intra-regional migration), migrants staying in other regions or
towns on a temporary or oscillatory basis, and cases where
members of the same households stay in different regions. Neither
is it possible to trace migration routes (from where to where) of
individual households. Moreover, the census does not answer qual-
itative questions: Why do people move; what are the reasons for
their choice of destinations? What is their migration experience?
What is the itinerary of their missions?
However, the census does give a basis for estimating the total
volume and general direction of migration between regions,5 by
correlating region of usual residence with place of birth. Close to one
million of the 1.3 million persons born in Namibia were enumerated
in their region of birth, implying that 300 000 people have moved to
another region. On the basis of census data reworked by O.O.
Arowolo (1994), H. Melber (1996) outlines the volume of migration
by arguing that with a few exceptions the influx into regions with
large urban centres and urban islands (in particular the coastal
towns) is a predominant feature. According to the data presented, the
proportion of migrants into Okahandja is fifty-five percent,
Grootfontein fifty- two percent, Windhoek fifty percent,
Otjiwarongo forty-seven percent, and Keetmanshoop thirty- two
percent. Regarding the coastal towns, the proportion of migrants into
Swakopmund is seventy-four percent and Lüderitz sixty-three
percent (Walvis Bay was not part of the census). The proportion of
migrants into regions in the north is considerable smaller: 9.1
percent for Kaokaland, 8.2 percent for Ondangwa, 8.1 percent for
Oshakati, 5.2 percent for Caprivi, and 2.8 percent for Okavango.
The highest proportion of migrants by region is not from the
northern areas of former Owamboland as often assumed, but from
commercial areas of the former police zone such as Omaruru
(sixty-seven percent), Bethanien (fifty-four percent) and Maltahöe
(fifty-three percent). In absolute figures, however, the overwhelming
majority of migrants moving to other places are those from the
regions of Oshakati (Oshana) and Ondangwa (Ohangwena) with 53
000 (fourteen percent) and 55 000 (twenty-one percent) respectively.
Another striking feature is the low mobility of inhabitants from
Caprivi, Okavango, and Kaokaland. The proportion of migrants from
these regions are 9.3 percent, 9.1 percent, and 3.5 percent.
CJAS382x4" 3/1/05 2:36 PM Page 406
In sum, the available information indicates the existence of three
central patterns of urban migration in Namibia, as depicted in Figure
1. One is from rural and urban areas in former Owambo to the larger
urban areas in the central part of the country (mainly Windhoek and
Walvis Bay). A second is from rural areas in the northern provinces of
Okavango and Caprivi to their respective main regional urban
centres of Rundu and Katima Mulilo. And a third is from rural and
urban areas in the south to the main urban areas in the central parts
of the country.6
As already shown, plausible explanations exist for the general
trends of urban migration depicted as related to structural conditions
and the socio-economic opportunity situation of urban and rural
households respectively. Both historically and in the post-indepen-
dence period, public and private investments, employment and
income opportunities, physical infrastructure, education, and health
services have been concentrated in the towns in the central parts of
the country. The economic opportunity situation for individuals and
households is still generally better in urban than in rural areas, as
reflected in important variables like income, consumption, educa-
tion, housing and access to other basic facilities. Finally, differences
exist in the economic opportunity situation of women particularly
through the informal sector in urban areas; and for younger people,
urban areas represent a modern world that they do not find in their
rural villages.
Political and economic context and the opportunity situation of
individual households thus go a long way towards explaining the
current migration trends in Namibia. However, important questions
are also left unanswered, particularly related to the increasing unem-
ployment and poverty in the sprawling informal settlement areas,
which should discourage rather than encourage urban migration in
the country. The deteriorating socio-economic conditions have been
evident for some time, but there are no indications that urban migra-
tion is decreasing. On the contrary, the main urban centres
(Windhoek, Walvis Bay, Rundu, and Oshakati) report an increasing
external population pressure.
Migrating through Networks
The main explanation for increasing urban migration is to be found
in the role played by social relations and networks; indeed, moving
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408 cjas / rcea 38: 2 2004
to town has become part of a complex survival strategy involving
both rural and urban social units (Tvedten and Nangulah 1999; see
also Bank 1997). People relate to their social networks within given
structural constraints and their own economic opportunity situa-
tion, and they become particularly important in situations of
poverty where households have inadequate resources to be viable
in their own right. Social relations and networks between the rural
and the urban are important for the decision to move to urban areas,
for the immediate strategies particularly related to housing and
employment, and for longer term economic coping strategies. They
are also crucial for the degree to which people become perma-
nently urban.
This tendency seems to be confirmed in the few studies where
the issue of social relations and urban-rural links have been
pursued, mainly from Windhoek (Peyroux and Graefe 1995) and
Oshakati (Tvedten and Pomuti 1994; Tvedten and Nangulah 1999).
The first case reveals that urban-rural connections are indeed
important, while the second case shows how the nature of these
relations varies particularly with class and gender. The poorest
migrants are unable to maintain links with their rural areas of
origin, which further contributes to their marginalisation and
impoverishment.
Social Relations and Urban-rural Links in Windhoek
A large influx of new urban dwellers has settled in two different
types of areas in Windhoek. One is in the formal township of
Katutura, where migrants have moved in with family members or
friends, rented rooms, or built iron shacks or other structures in the
backyard of existing houses. Katutura is now severely over-
crowded. The other main alternative is to settle in one of the infor-
mal settlements surrounding Katutura, such as Ombili,
Freedomland, Greenwell Matango, and Okuryangava. They are a
mixture of organised reception areas where people can stay for a
limited period of time and have access to basic urban services, and
unorganised squatter areas outside the control of the authorities
and illegal. Squatters represent sixty-four percent, and resettled
residents thirty-six percent of the population in the informal settle-
ments. They are currently estimated to have a population of 25 000-
30 000 or approximately twenty percent of the population in
CJAS382x4" 3/1/05 2:36 PM Page 408
Katutura and ten percent of the total population of Windhoek
(Windhoek Municipality 1996).
As many as ninety-three percent of the people in the informal
settlements are first generation migrants from rural areas (Peyroux
et al. 1995); thirty-five percent arrived after 1990, thirty-one
percent from 1984 to 1989, sixteen percent from 1978 to 1983, and
eighteen percent before 1970. The settlements include a very low
number of recent migrants (having arrived within one year prior to
the study) mainly because people tend to stay with family or friends
in settlement units in more established areas before establishing a
separate dwelling in the reception or squatting areas. In fact, the
large majority of the migrants in the sample (ninety-seven percent)
have stayed with family or friends for substantial periods before
establishing their own dwelling. Sixty-six percent have lived in
Windhoek more than three years before settling in the reception or
squatting area.
Upon arriving, people move into larger residential units (that
is, several units occupying a common dwelling), normally in
Katutura. The residential units consist of nuclear households or
single parents, extended family members, other family or friends
from the rural area, and tenants. Fifty-six percent of the migrants
stay with close family members when arriving Windhoek, and
eighteen percent stay with friends and people from the rural area of
origin. Of the remaining, ten percent stay in their work place and
only two percent came to Windhoek without the type of relations
mentioned.
The residential units tend to constitute a unit of basic food
consumption and provision and funding of urban services,7 as well
as the main point of departure for building up a network for seek-
ing employment. In addition, people use the residential units to
limit expenditures and to save before building their own dwelling
and facing expenditures for water, electricity, and sanitation. For
both these objectives, staying with family or friends is vital.
A large majority of the migrants in the informal settlements
(seventy-nine percent) come from former Owambo; ten percent are
Damara (Kunene Region); 5 percent are Okavango; and the remain-
ing are Herero, Tswana, San, and Nama. The predominance of
Owambos is confirmed in other studies (Pendleton 1996,
NPC/CSO 1996). Thus, the difference in the frequency of migration
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410 cjas / rcea 38: 2 2004
between people from former Owambo and the other regions in the
north is maintained also during the current urban crisis.
The migrants tend to establish their own household unit after
some time, as a result of overcrowding and problems in the larger
residential unit and access to formal or informal employment and
income. A large proportion of those who build their own dwelling
have saved money or borrowed money through informal relations
(residence in the informal city does not give a basis for loans). Once
established with a separate unit, relations with rural areas seem to
increase in importance as part of the survival strategy. The major-
ity of the households (eighty- four percent) in the informal settle-
ment areas continue to have dependants in their rural area of origin.
Ten percent live in Windhoek without their partner; forty-eight
percent live in Windhoek without or with only their smallest chil-
dren; and thirty-three percent are de facto female-headed house-
holds. Only twenty-five percent of the households in the sample
are complete nuclear units. No significant differences in living
situations distinguish the most recent migrants from earlier
migrants, implying that urban-rural links are part of a complex and
long-term strategy.
The importance of urban-rural relations and networks is
further underscored by the fact that as many as eighty-nine percent
of the households return to their rural area of origin at least once a
year, with only ten percent visiting only occasionally or never.
Equally important is the fact that nearly half of them (forty-eight
percent) stay in the rural area one month or more, while only seven-
teen percent stay less than a week. The urban-rural links thus
involve exchange of labour, childcare, agricultural produce, and
other goods and services. The large proportion of female-headed
households among those who do not maintain relations with the
rural areas is attributable to a combination of low income, lack of
rights to land and other resources in the rural area, and difficulties
in leaving children and other dependants behind in the city.
Social Relations and Urban-rural Links in Oshakati
Quantitative studies focusing on individual households and their
opportunity situation like that of Windhoek outlined above are
useful, but do not fully reflect the complexities involved in the
social relations of urban migration (Gugler 1997; Bank 1997). A
CJAS382x4" 3/1/05 2:36 PM Page 410
particularly important source of error seems to be the distinction
between meaning and practice. The cultural importance of rural
life and rural relationships is deeply embedded among many urban
migrants, prompting people to overstate the importance of such
relationships. The final section of this article takes a closer look at
qualitative aspects of migration in the town of Oshakati, showing
that relations of migration differ significantly particularly around
the variables of class (as a set of different positions on a scale of
social advantage) and gender. The poorest sections of the popula-
tion may be involved in urban-rural relationships, but without
being able to fill them with material content eventually leading
to their discontinuity.
Oshakati is the main urban centre for approximately 800 000
people living in Owambo (Hangula 1993; Tvedten and Nangulah
1999). The town was established in 1966 as part of South Africas
apartheid policy in Namibia and a springboard for incursions into
Angola, and grew rapidly throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Initially
the development of Oshakati brought employment opportunities
for Owambos employed with the South African Defence Force, but
there were also formal employment opportunities in construction
work, factories, hospitals, and shops. Also the informal sector grew
rapidly, with opportunities for tradesmen and women selling goods
ranging from traditional foodstuffs and beer to second hand clothes,
and for informal occupations including tailors, barbers, hair-
dressers, and prostitutes. Most of these establishments were
located in expanding shantytown areas. At Independence in 1990
Oshakati had a population of approximately 21 000 (NPC/CSO
1994).
The withdrawal of South Africa at Independence in 1990 had
immediate consequences for employment, income, and social
conditions. People associated with the South African Defence
Force left or lost their jobs, and thousands of unemployed SWAPO
freedom fighters moved in from the regions or from exile. In the
informal settlement areas, the transitional period was charac-
terised by poverty and social instability. People had no jobs, and the
informal sector had no customers. The social instability ensuing
was exacerbated by the presence of people having been on different
sides in the war.
The population of Oshakati is currently around 32 000, imply-
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412 cjas / rcea 38: 2 2004
ing an annual population increase of near six percent in the past few
years (Frayne and Pomuti 1997). Sixty percent or 23 000 people live
in the four sprawling shantytowns Amunkambya, Uupindi,
Oneshila, and Evululuku. The areas give an immediate impression
of poverty, deprivation, and vulnerability, verified by quantitative
data (Tvedten and Pomuti 1994).8 Only twenty percent of the adult
population in the shantytowns are formally employed, with the
remaining depending on a saturated informal economy or hand-
outs. The majority of households have a monthly income of less
than N$ 500 per month, meaning that approximately sixty percent
of the shanty population fall under the official poverty line.
The differences in levels of income are reflected in other socio-
economic conditions. Sixty-four percent of the shanty population
live in iron-shacks, and only thirty-four percent in brick houses.
Seventy-four percent of the shanty population depend on water
from communal taps; sixty-five percent do not have access to
proper toilet facilities; eighty-eight percent depend on wood for
cooking; and eighty-three percent depend on candles for lighting.
Finally, fourteen percent of the population above school age have
no education at all, and forty-seven percent have grade four or less,
implying a functional illiteracy rate of more than sixty percent.
The large majority of the urban migrants in Oshakati thus find
themselves in a very difficult socio-economic situation.
Nevertheless, people continue to move to Oshakati, and the rate of
migration has even shown an increase the past few years. In moving
to town, people use and depend on a number of different relations
and networks, of which relations with family, relatives, and friends
from the rural areas of origin are of crucial importance (Tvedten
and Nangulah 1999).
First, people from the same ethno-linguistic group and
geographical area cluster in each of the four main shantytowns in
Oshakati. Accordingly, one shantytown is dominated by
Uukwambi, one by Ndonga, and two are dominated by Kwanyama
(Tvedten and Pomuti 1994). Household composition further
reveals that fifty-seven percent of household members are closely
related to the household head, with as many as thirty-three percent
being extended family members and ten percent being friends and
other non-relatives from the same area of origin. As in the case of
Windhoek, these data show the importance of social relations for
CJAS382x4" 3/1/05 2:36 PM Page 412
the decision to move to town.
Once settled in town, as many as seventy-three percent of the
urban household heads consider themselves as part of an extended
split household unit that also includes a rural entity. This type of
household may include children, parents, unmarried brothers or
sisters, as well as more distant relatives (Tvedten and Pomuti
1994). The proportion of split households is higher among male-
headed than among female-headed households, with seventy-eight
percent and sixty-one percent respectively. The importance of
urban-rural links is further substantiated by the fact that as many
as eighty-eight percent of the urban households have access to land,
thirty-nine percent have access to cattle, and fifty-four percent visit
their rural areas of origin once a month or more. Male-headed
households generally have more frequent contact with their rural
areas of origin than female-headed households.
Quantitative data from Oshakati thus confirm the importance
of urban rural linkages both for the decision to move and for the
coping strategies once in town. However, deeper qualitative case
studies reveal that the type and nature of these relations largely
depend on class and gender (Tvedten and Nangulah 1999).
Moreover, hegemonic cultural perceptions about urban migration
are not easily captured in quantitative analyses. The rationale for
moving to town is to secure employment and income, and not
living up to such expectations has far-reaching consequences
particularly for men who are seen as the main providers for the
household and extended family.
Urban-rural relations in Oshakati are primarily based on
extended family relations (aakwanezimo), even though clanship
and friendship also play a role. The Owambos are matrilineal,
meaning that egos family is traced through the mothers kin and
with the mothers brother being the most important social person.
There are traditional cultural rules for rights and responsibilities
related to the aakwanezimo, but these are undergoing continuous
changes and are subject to negotiations in each individual case.
Urban households are in a special situation as they do not live
in the same setting as their extended family, implying that rela-
tions have to be maintained with people living in villages that may
be difficult and expensive to reach. While rural family members
visiting town are expected to bring traditional foodstuffs such as
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414 cjas / rcea 38: 2 2004
millet (mahangu), spinach (evanda/ekaka), meat (onyama) and
traditional brew (omakadu/omalovu), urban family members
visiting villages are expected to bring money or capital items such
as clothing, canned food, cooking oil, beverages, and detergents. In
addition, participation in agricultural tasks like ploughing, sowing,
weeding, harvesting, and herding are expected to be done by the
urban dwellers themselves or by paying a labourer or relative to
fulfil their agricultural responsibilities. And finally, important
socio- cultural events such as birth, weddings, and funerals demand
money as well as physical presence.
Urban male-headed households with employment and income
are in the outset in the best position to maintain relations with
their extended family and rural areas of origin, but they are also
most susceptible to claims from the extended family. It is, in fact,
nearly impossible for better off households to cut ties with the rural
areas without getting into serious problems with the extended
family. With the large expenses related to both traditional and
modern marriage, employed men are most likely to be formally
married which unites extended families and defines rights and
obligations (the lavish marriage celebrations should be seen as a
way to secure that each partner has the means to support the
spouse in a context of poverty and insecurity). Maintaining rela-
tions is partly a question of visiting and being present on important
social occasions, and partly of contributing with money or goods.
With the commercialisation of agricultural production, male-
headed households with employment and income are also most
likely to have cattle and own land in their village of origin which
further strengthens relations both culturally and by employing
people to take care of their assets.
Unemployed men with limited and fluctuating income are at a
double disadvantage. On the one hand, their options of maintain-
ing relationships are limited as they have problems visiting the
rural areas and maintaining the relationship with money and other
assets. Often, they will also lack cattle and land, which are impor-
tant parts of extended family relations in their own right. At the
same time, being unemployed and poor is a violation of the very
rationale for becoming urban and leaving ones cultural roots in the
first place. Extended family members are less likely to visit a rela-
tive who is poor with inferior housing, not only because there is
CJAS382x4" 3/1/05 2:36 PM Page 414
limited space and less to gain but also because having children or
other relatives in town who have not made it is considered a
disgrace. In the same vein, many poor urban men do not return to
their villages of origin even though socio-economic conditions
would be better there, because they cannot face their extended
family members as failures.
Women and female-headed households are in a special situation.
Their ties with the extended family are to a large extent based on chil-
dren as extended family property. Children are often sent to the rural
areas to be taken care of by the mothers matrilineal family, which is
also expected to support the urban-based women with mahangu or
other agricultural products. Women traditionally do not own cattle
and agricultural land in rural areas themselves, even though the
increasing commercialisation of land has opened up options for land
ownership. There also seems to be lower expectations for money and
other contributions from women in town, based on the traditional
perception of men as principal breadwinners. However, there are
increasing concerns in the rural areas about the economic burden of
having a large number of children from urban-based relationships.
Mateus Shonga and Johannes Martin live in Oshakati and are
neighbours and good friends, despite the very different situations in
which they find themselves. Mateus lives in a small iron-shack with
his girlfriend and a child, and he barely manages to make ends meet
through occasional work unloading trucks and income from a small
cuca-shop. Johannes lives in a brick-house built with loans from the
Governments Build Together Programme, is formally married, has
four official children and is permanently employed by the Oshakati
Town Council.
Johannes constantly has relatives and friends visiting from his
village which he perceives as a mixed blessing. They bring
mahangu, spinach, meat, and traditional brew as custom demands,
but they tend to stay for long periods of time, looking for work or just
hang around in town, thus becoming an economic burden. At the
same time, not taking them in may jeopardise his position in the rural
areas where he has fields and cattle and ultimately wants to retire.
A house full of people is a rich house (waana omutanda kunon-
gomba) is a common saying.
Mateus, for his part, is constantly in need of money, and he has
tried to have his extended family support him through all possible and
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416 cjas / rcea 38: 2 2004
impossible means. He has pleaded, threatened, referred to Owambo
culture, and even tried to take them to traditional court. At one stage,
he also moved back to his village, leaving his girlfriend and their child
behind. But the extended family keeps refusing officially because
Mateus is not properly married but more likely because they know
they will not get anything in return. The last time I accompanied
Mateus to his village was in 1998. He claims that he has not been
there since then, because, I suspect, he finds it too difficult to face his
family in his current condition.
Traditionally, the clan (ezimo/epata) also had responsibilities to
support people finding themselves in difficult situations. Each indi-
vidual belongs to two clans, of which the mothers clan is considered
most important. Clan responsibilities were particularly important
when people travelled away from their own area into other territories,
where fellow clan members were expected to treat the visitor as a
brother (or sister). The importance of the clan was gradually reduced
in rural areas with the impact of Christianity, apartheid policies,
increasing commercialisation and changing residence patterns.
However, indications are that the clan is becoming an important part
of peoples survival strategies in poor urban areas. Well-off households
try to suppress the notion of ezimo-responsibilities in order to avoid
further burdens, whereas poor households try to evoke them in order
to be able to put claims on a larger number of people for support.
Looking at the urban-rural relationship from the rural end, people
in the villages of Ompundja and Oniihende differ considerably in the
extent to which they maintain contacts with urban relatives and
friends (Tvedten and Nangula 1999). Oniihende is most remote, has
the oldest and least educated population, and is generally poorer than
Ompundja. In Oniihende, no household earns more than $N 250
Namibian per month, while fifteen percent of the households in
Ompundja earn more than $N 3 000 Namibian per month. Also in
terms of land and livestock, Ompundja is better off than Oniihende.
In the former village households harvest an average of 140 oratas (one
orata is approximately fifteen kilograms) and eighty-five percent of
the households own cattle, while households in Oniihende harvest an
average of thirty-four oratas and only forty-five percent of the house-
holds have cattle most of them with small herds.
The differences in levels of income are reflected in the
frequency of visits to Oshakati and other urban areas. In
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Ompundja, fifty percent of the households have members who visit
urban areas very often (at least once a week), with very few house-
holds visiting seldom (once a year or less). In Oniihende, twenty
percent of the households have never visited urban areas; twenty-
seven percent visit urban areas sometimes (less than once a month
but at least once a year); and as many as fifty-three percent visit
seldom. Thus, also at the rural end, poverty inhibits urban- rural
relationships. This is further underlined by the much more limited
proportion of household heads in Oniihende than in Ompundja
who have lived in urban areas for any extended period of time. In
the more traditional Oniihende, moreover, decisions to move are
normally made in close consultation with the extended family
which tends to limit the number of migrants. In Ompundja,
younger people are more exposed to urban areas and often leave the
village in violation of the advice of the elders who have seen too
many who do not succeed.
An older man in Ompundja laments:
People who go to town say that it is boring here [in the village],
and that they will go to town to work and make money. But
what happens? They dont get a job and they dont have money.
Then they expect us who live in villages to support them, but
when we visit them they dont accept us. They think we are
intruding in their family lives and expect us to pay our own
expenses, while they do not pay anything when they come
here.
And in the harsh words of an old man in Oniihende,
We do not support people who have no contact and do not
support us and we do not feel we have any responsibility
towards them. The only time we have [responsibility] is when
they die. We have to bury them.
Conclusion
People in Southern Africa continue to migrate to cities and towns,
despite the majority ending up impoverished in sprawling urban
slum areas. More than fifty percent of Africas poor will live in
urban areas by 2025. The continued movement to town in the face
of urban poverty challenges conventional migration theories focus-
ing on structural conditions and individual opportunity situations
within an urban bias paradigm, as well as more recent post-modern
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418 cjas / rcea 38: 2 2004
discourses defining cities as engines of growth and rural-urban
linkages in notions of beneficial exchange between groups of
complementary difference (Bryceson and Bank 2001).
This article has argued that the basic premise in both para-
digms, that push and pull economic factors lead to definitive
or oscillatory population movements between rural and urban
settings, need to be complemented by a focus on the social relations
of migration. Attention to the qualitative aspects of the migration
experience yields important information on why people migrate,
the strategies that they pursue once in town, the nature and extent
of the relations maintained with rural areas of origin, and differ-
ences in migration strategies between different social groups.
Following a long period with political and structural
constraints on urban migration in Namibia and a low level of
urbanisation, the post-independence period has seen a strong
increase in urban ward migration and a concomitant increase in
urban poverty. Quantitative data from Windhoek and Oshakati
reveal the importance of rural-urban linkages in migrating to and
surviving urban poverty, showing that the majority of urban
migrants maintain part of the household in rural areas, visit the
rural areas with frequent intervals, and exchange money, food, and
other material items.
However, the poorest sections of the urban population are not
as able to maintain such links. Poor, unemployed men are in a
particularly disadvantaged position. By not succeeding in the urban
environment, they cannot reward their relations with material
resources and have violated the very rationale for moving to town.
Therefore, they lose much of their status as men. For poor, unem-
ployed women, the problem of filling relations with material
content is equally serious, but children bind them to their rural
areas of origin in a different way.
Bryceson and Bank have recently noted:
Notions of urban bias are now giving way to an amazing opti-
mism about urban growth and rural-urban linkages, but the
urbanisation process itself is virtually directionless and uncon-
trolled (2001, 19).
While social relations of migration are important for the decision
to move, for urban coping strategies, and for urban-rural relations,
urban-rural links also represent important processes of impover-
CJAS382x4" 3/1/05 2:36 PM Page 418
ishment and marginalisation that must be taken into consideration
when designing urban development policies (Kamete, Tostensen
and Tvedten 2001).
Notes
1 In 1970 the urban population in Namibia was estimated at 236 500 or
twenty-three percent; forty percent of this population was white, and sixty
percent was black. The equivalent number for rural areas was ninety
percent black and four percent white (UNIM 1986).
2 The Local Authorities Act (Namibia 1992) distinguishes between munic-
ipalities and towns. Municipalities represent the highest level of local
authority, and are generally the most developed areas with a large degree of
financial and administrative autonomy (Simon 1996).
3 The 2001 census data were still not available at the time of writing. The
figures following are projections made on the basis of the 1991 Census.
Smaller distortions are likely, without changing the basis for the argu-
ments.
4 In line with standard colloquial usage, the term township is used to
denote low-income areas with formalized housing, access to basic social
services and a system of secure tenure. Informal settlement areas (also
called squatter areas) lack all these attributes and are generally (but not
necessarily) poorer and more deprived.
5 At the time of the 1991 census, the sub-national administrative level was
called districts, roughly corresponding to the present-day regions with the
exception of the populous former Owamboland that was divided into four
regions. For the purpose of the general argument of trends of migration, the
terms will be used interchangeably in this article.
6 There are also initial signs of a fourth trend from the south and the north
towards the urban areas in the north, partly at the expense of migration to
Windhoek. This mainly seems to involve people with formal skills who
can get formal employment in the pubic or private sector.
7 Other expenditures (cloths, transport, schools, and hospitals) tend to be
shared within each family unit.
8 The following data are taken from a survey based on a seven percent
sample, stratified proportionally by settlement and with systematic
random sampling.
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