Life chances, better employment, and career opportunities abroad are the most prominent reasons why South Africans emigrate. This emerges from data published by the Institute of Race Relations (IRR) in the latest edition of its monthly bulletin Free Facts.

It was reporting on the IRR’s Diaspora Survey, an initiative that polled South Africans living abroad to gain a better understanding of why people have left the country.

The most common reason for emigration reported – at 39.8% – related to career and economic opportunities, which are perceived to be better than those available to them in South Africa. The second reason was crime and corruption, at 30.1%. A distant third, at 6.8%, was the state of race relations. The results suggested a fairly even balance of push and pull factors.

The IRR noted that more than a million South Africans have left the country since 1990. Many of these have been from the country’s best educated, most productive, and wealthiest people.

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

And while South Africa is home to the largest share of dollar millionaires in Africa, with about 34% of the total number of dollar millionaires on the continent (or 41 100 individuals), reports indicate that in the past 10 years, around 2 400 dollar millionaires have packed up and left.

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

Makone Maja, IRR strategic engagements manager, said that the drain of skills and expertise was a symptom of systemic problems in the country that risked undermining its future: “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 and confirmed by independent polling; Afrobarometer found in 2022 that a quarter of the population, or one in four citizens, were considering emigration. Afrobarometer also found that one in every 20 people was in the process of making plans, such as beginning visa application processes, to leave the country.

Maja argued that turning this around required tackling the underlying failures in the economy and presenting a future rich in life chances and career choices: “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.”