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“Big Fish in a Small Pond”: Chinese Migrant Shopkeepers in South Africa

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  • Edwin Lin

Abstract

type="main" xml:id="imre12074-abs-0001"> The steady growth of Chinese migrants to South Africa in the past decade provides an opportunity to use Sen's (2001, Development as Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press) capabilities approach in the field of immigration. This theoretical framing reveals that the Chinese employ, what I call, a small pond migration strategy – utilizing mobility to maximize their social, economic, and human capital. I argue that the Chinese move to South Africa because of a desire to venture out of China and pursue freedoms associated with being one's own boss. Once in South Africa, they choose to stay because of comfortable weather and a slower pace of life, despite losing freedoms associated with high crime in Johannesburg. The findings suggest alternative ways of understanding factors of migration as well as a model that explains migration from more developed countries to less developed ones.

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  • Edwin Lin, 2014. "“Big Fish in a Small Pond”: Chinese Migrant Shopkeepers in South Africa," International Migration Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(1), pages 181-215, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:intmig:v:48:y:2014:i:1:p:181-215
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/imre.2014.48.issue-1
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    Cited by:

    1. Titus Boekel & Veronique Schutjens & Annelies Zoomers, 2023. "Can the Dragon Make the Lion Breathe Fire? The Links of Chinese Entrepreneurs in the Addis Ababa Economy," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 35(5), pages 1127-1148, October.
    2. Joseph Chikwendu Ezennia & Emmanuel Mutambara, 2020. "Sociological factors influencing the success of African immigrant-owned micro businesses in South Africa," Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues, VsI Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Center, vol. 8(1), pages 972-982, September.

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