Zimbabwe�s Lost Decade: Politics, Development and Society

8. Society, Livelihoods & Migration

153 Introduction The impact of the political developments assessed in the first part of this book, and the economic disruptions described in Chapters 5 and 6, have been very profound for Zimbabwean society. The severe repercussions have included the spread and deepening of poverty, a relentlessly tight squeeze on livelihoods and one of the largest peacetime migrations in recent history. Although estimates vary, it has been asserted that up to three million Zimbabweans (about a quarter of the population) have migrated to other countries for economic and political reasons (UNDP 2008; Crush and Tevera 2010). Migration on such a massive scale is an eloquent indictment of the policies that the Mugabe government implemented during the lost decades. There is a deep sense in which ‘things will never be the same again’ after the unravelling of the country’s political social fabric over the last 30 years. However, it was during the third decade of independence that this unravelling reached crisis proportions, as Chapters 5 and 6 illustrated. It is no coincidence that most livelihoods received their sternest test and shocks, and that out-migration reached its peak in the period 2000–2008. In this chapter we explore the links between patterns of inequalities and pressures on livelihoods of both the middle and working classes, pressures which created a large momentum for migration. It then examines the implications of the growth of the Zimbabwean diaspora and whether its remittances have had a positive impact on livelihoods and economic development. Finally, the chapter explores the effects of the crisis on culture, values and ideas about society and development. Classes, Wealth and Poverty The state of livelihoods is conditioned by class and patterns of wealth and poverty in society. Zimbabwe’s inheritance at independence consisted of a skewed class system with most of the wealth concentrated in the 8 Society, Livelihoods & Migration 154 Zimbabwe’s Lost Decades 154 white minority, a small African middle class and a growing working class. Numerically, the peasant class was the largest although it had connections with the working class, to the extent that the latter retained strong links with the former. However, one clear trend during the following three decades was the steady decline in the size of the white population, which fell from about 200,000 in 1980 to less than 50,000 in 2010. During the first 15 years of independence, the growth of the working and middle classes was notable as public sector employment expanded together with the education and health systems. As the manufacturing, services and financial sectors grew, so did the numbers of workers, who reached the 1.5 million mark in the 1990s. Amongst them was an African middle class which not only occupied senior positions in government ministries, parastatals and uniformed forces but also the higher echelons in the private sector. Another fraction of the middle class was beginning to root itself in the small and medium-sized business sectors. The growth in the size of these classes would have been more dynamic and faster had the economy had been robust. The post-independence state created opportunities for class formation and mobility as the education and economic sectors expanded. However, the inroads into inequalities were limited. For instance, one report in 1998 observed that: inequality in income distribution is indicated by a high Gini coefficient of 0.63. Some 41 per cent of the population lived below the poverty line. The richest ten per cent earns 47 per cent of national income while the poorest ten per cent earns only two per cent. The richest 20 per cent earns 62 per cent compared to only four per cent earned by the poorest 20 per cent. (SADC RHDR 1998:47) Thus the country experienced some of the sharpest levels of inequality on the continent together with Namibia and South Africa, also former white settler societies. Of the 24 sub-Saharan countries listed in Deininger and Squire (1996), only South Africa, Gabon and Sierra Leone had a more unequal pattern of income distribution. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) classified Zimbabwe as a ‘highly unequal society’ in which the richest 20 per cent of the population received 60 per cent of the income (UNCTAD 1997). Nearly two decades of independence failed to address the sharp inequalities in Zimbabwean society. 155 155 Society, Livelihoods & Migration Poverty levels steadily deepened after the first decade of independence . A government-sponsored...