Document: Urbanization and the Informal Sector in the Former South African Ethnic Homelands: A Study of Parallel Trading in Transkei

This article is a critical assessment of an aspect of the apartheid political economy in the former homelands. Two arguments are advanced. First, the poverty of the informal sector was a result of lack of capital investments in towns in Transkei during the apartheid era. Furthermore, the smallness of the informal sector and the dominance of the female population in the sector is a consequence of migration of productive male labour force into the developed enclaves of South Africa.  Secondly, it is argued that the nature of urbanization mirrors the economic development of the towns. With the transition to democracy, the socio-economic underdevelopment may be reversed or at least transformed.