LABOUR MIGRATION IN SOUTH AFRICA historically occurred under specific institutional conditions, where a range of measures made permanent urban settlement impossible for most migrants. With the lifting of formal sanctions against African urbanisation, it might be expected that patterns of circular or temporary labour migration would be replaced by permanent migration, and particularly to urban areas, and that migrants’ ties to their households of origin would have considerably weakened. The period after the ending of Influx Control, however, has been associated with further changes that are likely to impact on the movement of people and their relationship to rural households of origin, two notable examples being high and rising unemployment and an increase in HIV prevalence and the incidence of AIDS. In times of ill health and labour market insecurity, rural areas may continue to provide a refuge for migrants (Wilkinson et al, 1998; Vaughan, 1997), as well as being a place for retirement (James, 2001).