Abstract
In Sub-Saharan Africa, political leaders tend to link the presence of immigrants with dangers to the national community and accuse foreigners of seeking to take jobs, power and land from true autochthons. Emphasising their autochthonous status, such leaders blame immigrant communities for a decline in national wellbeing and rationalise discriminatory action against them as a defence of the collective community. This chapter aims to analyse subjective national wellbeing using public opinion data and to map the linkages between national wellbeing and xenophobia. The chapter will explore this hypothesis within each of Hadley Cantril’s classic three subjective wellbeing ladder groups. Using South Africa as a case study, this is the first time that such tests will be conducted in a Sub-Saharan African environment. The chapter used data from the 2012 South African Social Attitudes Survey, a nationally representative opinion poll of 2521 respondents. Standard linear multivariate regression is used to test the relationship between subjective national wellbeing and xenophobia. Among each of the Cantril subgroups, there were similar predictors of pro-immigrant sentiment: intergroup contact, perceived consequences of immigration and subjective national wellbeing. Improving levels of subjective national wellbeing in the country will, therefore, have a negative impact on xenophobia in the country. This chapter will conclude by discussing future areas of research to explore and present recommendations on how quality of life research can be used to better understand prejudice in countries like Sub-Saharan Africa and beyond.
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Notes
- 1.
The May 2008 riots were the most striking examples of collective anti-immigrant violence in South Africa. Over a hundred thousand displaced were displaced during anti-immigrant riots that last about two weeks. These riots saw the deaths of more than 60 and left roughly 700 people wounded. A report by the Human Sciences Research Council (2008) provides a detailed description of the attacks.
- 2.
Wellbeing is generally viewed as a description of an individual’s quality of life as a whole. In general, wellbeing can be measured using objective and subjective approaches. The first understand wellbeing through certain observable 'facts' such as economic, social and environmental statistics. For example, we could measure wellbeing using personal annual income per capita. The second considers an individual’s wellbeing to be best understood using self-reported survey measures. Subjective measures of an individual’s use an individual’s self-reported evaluations of their life’s quality (Diener and Suh 1997). Scholars studying subjective wellbeing contend that such evaluations involve a multidimensional process which includes cognitive judgements of life satisfaction and affective evaluations of emotions and moods (also see Diener 2009; Cummins et al. 2009; Gulyas 2015). Subjective wellbeing is thought to be a more holistic indicator of quality of life than objective indicators like income or consumption.
- 3.
Individual assessments of national economic performance have been shown to be influential in attitudinal research on immigration. A recent review of the existing literature on immigration attitudinal research by Hainmueller and Hopkins (2014) noted that when examining and analysing attitudes toward immigrants, individual assessments of the economic state of the nation have proved influential, often more so than the effect attributed to personal economic circumstances.
- 4.
Since 1994 there has been considerable expansion of the South African social welfare system to include millions of poor Black Africans. Government efforts to assist the poor gain access to basic services has seen the provision, under the Free Basic Services policies, of free water, electricity, sanitation and waste removal to millions of people (Statistics South Africa 2014a). The government has made cash transfers to millions of households through the social grants system. Through the Child Support Grant, the national pension scheme and other social grants, some 16 million South Africans were beneficiaries of government cash transfers in 2014 (Statistics South Africa 2014b: 20).
- 5.
A World Employment and Social Outlook and Trends report by the International Labour Organisation (2015) documents how unfavourably the South African labour market compares with other countries. Out of the 107 nations included in the report, South Africa was estimated to have the 8th highest unemployment rate in 2015. Unemployment rates amongst the adult youth (36.1% in 2014) were substantially higher than those of other adults (15.6% in 2014). The adult youth account for less than two-fifths (39.9%) of total employment. The considerable disparity in the absorption rate noted between adult youth and other adults further reflects the scarcity of job opportunities for the adult youth in the national labour market. Cross-national comparative data presented in the International Labour Organisation (2015) report estimates that South Africa will have the 6th highest level of youth unemployment out of 107 countries in 2015.
- 6.
The Civic Protest Barometer (CPB) report by Powell et al. (2015) provides data on trends on recorded protest action in South Africa's municipalities. Since 2010 the number of civic protests has grown, standing at 218 in 2014. The CPB measures the percentage of protests that involve an element of violence. It would appear that incidences of violence are growing and in 2014 more than four-fifths (83%) of recorded protests were considered violent.
- 7.
Six questions were asked: “How satisfied are you with: (i) the economic situation?; (ii) the state of the natural environment?; (iii) the social conditions?; (iv) how the country’s affairs are managed?; (v) business?; and (vi) national security?” In line with the standard methodology on the NWI (Cummins et al. 2003), each item was measured on a single 11-point scale ranging from ‘completely dissatisfied’ to ‘completely satisfied’.
- 8.
The different NWI dimensions were loaded onto a clearly defined factor which explained 58.3% of variance. The factorability of the correlation matrix also met the other assumptions for such an analysis. Therefore expectations, based on previous research, regarding the measurement of this latent concept are confirmed.
- 9.
Respondents in the survey were asked comparative questions on national pride, asking if they agreed or disagreed that: (i) “I would rather be a citizen of South Africa than of any other country in the world”; and (ii) “Generally speaking, South Africa is a better country than most other countries”. Responses were reversed and coded onto a five-point Likert scale which was then reversed (1 strongly disagree, 5 strongly agree).
- 10.
Two questions are employed to create this categorical variable: (i) “How many acquaintances do you know who have come to live in South Africa from another country?”; and (ii) “Of the people you know who have come to live in South Africa from another country, how many would you consider to be your friends?”.
- 11.
It could be argued that the observed effect here is due to the low numbers of tertiary educated respondents in the Low Cantril subgroup. This supposition is based on the thesis that there are significant nonlinearities in the association between education and pro-immigrant attitudes. Using European data, scholars like Hainmueller and Hiscox (2007), have argued that such nonlinearities exist.
- 12.
Pairwise correlations between the composite subjective National Wellbeing Index constructed for this study (i.e. the NWI) and these three measures showed that five year future evaluations (0.405) had a higher correlation coefficient with the NWI than past five year evaluations (0.115). Also using pairwise correlations, future evaluations of the state of the nation (0.146) were found to have a higher correlation coefficient with the Pro-Immigrant Attitude Index than past evaluations (0.067).
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Acknowledgements
Data for the proposed chapter will be provided from a study funded by the Algeria/South Africa Research cooperation programme under the title of “Quality of Life in Algeria and South Africa: A Multi Method Approach”. The programme was sponsored by the Algerian Direction Générale de la Recherche Scientifique et du Développement Technologique and the South African National Research Foundation. Support for this chapter was provided by the South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS) a programme within Democracy Governance and Service Delivery research programme, Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC). For their support and encouragement, special thanks to Benjamin J. Roberts and Jarè Struwig Co-ordinators of SASAS as well as Professor Valerie Møller.
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Gordon, S.L. (2017). Subjective National Wellbeing and Xenophobia in Sub-Saharan Africa: Results and Lessons from South Africa. In: Kraeger, P., Cloutier, S., Talmage, C. (eds) New Dimensions in Community Well-Being. Community Quality-of-Life and Well-Being. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55408-2_5
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