Paper 2 · November 2023 · Population Geography
On Fig. 4.1, the arrows converging on South Africa are by far the thickest on the map. What best explains this?
AEvery other country on the map was experiencing an economic boom in the early 1990s, which discouraged anyone from leaving them.
BSouth Africa's population was declining sharply in the early 1990s, creating an artificial labour shortage that pulled in workers.
CSouth Africa's industrialised, mining-based economy offered wages far above its neighbours and had long recruited migrant mine labour directly.
DSouth Africa is drawn at the centre of the map, which makes any arrow pointing toward it appear thicker than it really is.
Explanation
Fig. 4.1's key states explicitly that arrow thickness shows the volume of migration, so the thick arrows are a real measure of flow, not a drawing effect of map position. South Africa's relatively advanced, industrialised economy, and its long history of recruiting migrant labour into its mines specifically, is what drew such a disproportionate volume of migrants from its neighbours.
Derived from ZIMSEC Advanced Level Geography 6037/2 Paper 2: Human Component, November 2023 session, Q4