The Price of a Neighbor's Hate: Assessing the Educational Impacts of the 2019 Xenophobic Uprising in South Africa

Abstract

Xenophobic uprisings in South Africa have killed, injured, and displaced hundreds of Black, African migrants. Using school location as a proxy for exposure to xenophobic violence, I estimate a difference-in-differences model on immigrant performance in the South African National Senior Certificate Examinations (NSC). From this estimation, I find that the 2019 xenophobic uprising led to a 12 percentage point decline in immigrants’ NSC Overall Pass Rate. This effect is unique to immigrant students, whose 2019 pass rates declined by 8% relative to non-immigrants and immigrants far from attacks. Adverse impacts are, however, short-term, and do not persist past the year of exposure. For all other NSC outcomes, including Mathematics pass rates and Distinction attainment, noisy nulls obscure the full scope of the uprising’s educational impacts.