of an officially estimated population of 3,4 10,000 were temporarily absent
from the reserves. Only a tiny proportion
of these absentees were female,
and nearly all the males were between fifteen and fifty' years old. By that
time, almost every African man with a home in a reserve went out to work
on a white farm or in a white town at some stage in his life. The wages he
earned, though small, became an essential part of the economy of his rural
household.V
The South African economy thus developed unique characteristics. The
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