In short

• Nearly 40% of South Africans believe immigrants should never access welfare benefits.
• Views aren’t driven by poverty but by zero-sum beliefs about immigrants competing for jobs and benefits.
• Higher social trust and mainstream party affiliation correlate with more inclusive attitudes.
• Left-wing economic views surprisingly predict stronger opposition to immigrant welfare inclusion.

South Africa’s vast social safety net meets a small immigrant population. Yet big, unresolved questions and debates remain. Who should qualify, and on what terms, when budgets are tight and inequality is extreme? A new HSRC study digs beneath the rhetoric to understand why so many people favour “citizens first”, by examining the roles of political ideology, social trust and anti-immigrant sentiment.

A Zimbabwean artisan, weaving a basket in South Africa. Photo: Norman Mapfuno, Wikimedia Commons

South Africa is one of the most unequal countries in the world, with some sources citing it as the most unequal. It also has a relatively robust welfare system. In 2003, 12.8% of individuals in the population were receiving social grants, which grew to 40.1% in 2024. The government also provides subsidised access to basic services such as healthcare through a range of welfare programmes.

Some foreign nationals living in South Africa have limited access to the social welfare system. Although there is no evidence that they place an undue burden on the system, this policy has sparked heated debate. Groups like Operation Dudula have targeted migrants trying to access hospitals or schools in highly publicised campaigns. Despite frequent public debate, South African attitudes towards immigrant welfare inclusion remain under-researched and poorly understood.

In a new HSRC paper, Dr Steven Gordon, a chief research specialist at the HSRC, analysed data from the 2020 South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS) to examine public preferences for immigrant welfare inclusion. Gordon explored three factors that shape these preferences, namely left-wing economic orientations, generalised social trust and anti-immigrant stereotypes.

South African perceptions of immigrant inclusion in welfare

In 2020, respondents were asked: “Thinking of people coming to live in South Africa from other countries, when do you think they should obtain the same rights to social grants and services as citizens already living here?” Public opinion was divided on this question. A large proportion (39%) said immigrants should never get the same welfare rights as South Africans. About half supported some inclusion, but with conditions. For example, 22% supported inclusion only after immigrants received citizenship, and 12% supported inclusion after immigrants had worked and paid taxes. A smaller group (8%) supported welfare access after one year’s residence in the country, while 12% backed full, immediate access. Compared to European countries, South Africans were notably more exclusionary about immigrant access to welfare.

Socioeconomic factors

Many would attribute public opposition to immigrant inclusion in the welfare system to poverty, assuming that poorer citizens are more opposed than their affluent counterparts. However, there was no evidence that being poor made a person more likely to exclude immigrants. Extensive testing showed that employment, education and household assets were not strong predictors of public attitudes towards immigrant welfare inclusion in South Africa.

Anti-immigrant stereotypes

The SASAS survey tested whether South Africans held zero-sum views of immigration—the belief that one group’s gains come at another’s expense. Respondents were asked whether they thought immigrants’ access to welfare benefits or jobs reduced opportunities for South Africans, and whether immigrants starting businesses left fewer opportunities for non-immigrants.

A substantial proportion of the public believed that immigration had a zero-sum impact on South Africa, and this was the strongest predictor of opposition to immigrant inclusion in the welfare system. In short, the more someone believed that immigrants’ gains came at South Africans’ expense, the less supportive they were of inclusion.

Social trust

Social trust is the trust placed in members of society that an individual does not personally know—the belief that others will act fairly and reciprocally. The study found that higher generalised social trust increased support for including immigrants in the welfare system, particularly for those who paid taxes and contributed to the economy.

Party affiliation

The study also found that political affiliation influenced opinions on inclusion. Individuals aligned with a mainstream political party were more likely to support inclusionary views than those not affiliated with any party. Affiliation to minor opposition parties showed no significant link with either inclusionary or exclusionary attitudes. This result demonstrates that opposition to immigrant inclusion was strongest among those who felt unrepresented by the country’s major parties.

Leftwing orientations

South African politics has long been dominated by left-wing ideas. Since 1994, the ruling African National Congress (ANC) has campaigned on a left-wing political agenda, focused on state-led social welfare programmes, market regulations and the redistribution of wealth.

“Left-wing movements in South Africa have often combined the rhetoric of national self-determination with calls for land reform, workers’ rights and the redistribution of wealth,” wrote Gordon. “Left-wing politics was combined with nationalism, rooted in the belief that the nation-state is the primary vehicle to resist imperialism and colonialism.”

Gordon hypothesised that stronger left-wing orientations would correlate negatively with support for immigrant welfare inclusion, meaning that as left-wing support increased, approval of inclusion decreased. This was supported by the new HSRC paper’s findings, where the stronger individuals leaned towards left-wing economic orientations, the less they supported the inclusion of immigrants in welfare benefits. In other words, the more left-wing in economic orientation a person was, the stronger their opposition to the inclusion of immigrants in the welfare system.

What do the findings tell us?

The paper highlighted substantial divisions among South Africans on whether immigrants should access welfare benefits. It also invites a closer look at the nature of contemporary left-wing politics in the country. “The pattern of results seems to suggest that perhaps leftism in the country is characterised by a politics of ethno-nationalistic entitlement,” wrote Gordon. He argued that future research should delve into the different types of left-wing politics in post-apartheid South Africa and should separate and map these inclusive vs exclusive strands. This mapping will help us better understand how South African left-wing views are formed and how they differ.

Research contacts and acknowledgements

This article is based on the paper Support for immigrant welfare inclusion in South Africa: socio-political drivers of policy preferences. It was written by HSRC science writer Jessie-Lee Smith and Dr Steven Gordon, a chief research specialist in the HSRC’s Developmental, Capable and Ethical State division. For more information, contact Gordon at sgordon@hsrc.ac.za.

The analysis draws on data from the South African Social Attitudes Survey 2020.

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