This note attempts to evaluate the more significant studies on migratory labour in Africa,1 and to suggest some of the information needed not only to advance knowledge but also to provide a basis for governmental policy.
There are two important elements of migratory labour as discussed in this note: the impermanent attachment to the labour force, and the absence from home. An increasing proportion of ‘wanderers who travel in search of wage labor’ (Carter Goodrich, ‘Migratory Labor’, in Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, New York, Macmillan, 1933) become, at least during their individual working lives, permanent members of the wage labour force.2 Petty traders, as well as the still frequently expatriate high-level manpower, who manifest some of the characteristics of migrant labour, are excluded from any discussion in this note.