The Effects of Race, Class and Gender on Care Provided for Children and Families in Contemporary South Africa

In this essay I will outline the effect of race, class and gender on the structure of families in contemporary South Africa. Family structures are influenced by the history of racial segregation in South Africa, household income, culture and the neighbourhood that they live in. Following an description of the structure of families in South African households, I will briefly consider how care is provided to children and families by the state and market. South Africa has a comprehensive social security system, as do many developing countries in Africa, which focuses on the child and family and includes financial, educational, healthcare and social service provisions.

Family structure is a key determinant of the care that is provided for children. In South Africa in particular, race, class and gender play a role in the structure of families. Just under half of all adolescents in South Africa live in a two-parent household, and half of that number is composed of nuclear families (Bray, Gooskens, Moses, Kahn, & Seekings, 2010). Thus, the traditional notion of a two-parent nuclear family is not reflected in the statistics. Parental absence is more common in low-income and/or African headed households. The relationship between income and family structure is less noted among African headed households as much as it is noted in coloured headed households, and no such relationship is discernable in white headed households due to their predominantly high-income status (Bray, Gooskens, et. al, 2010). Looking across population groups, children in African or coloured households are more likely to be cared for by a single parent or grandparent, whereas children in a white family are likely to be cared for by both their parents.

Apart from race and class, gender also varies how a household is structured. The responsibility for childcare is disproportionately skewed towards women, a phenomenon which has its origins in apartheid. The distance which separated African husbands from their wives due to migrant labour during the twentieth century increased the rate of extramarital affairs, and so rates of paternal absence and children born out of wedlock have remained high, even after pass laws were abolished in 1986 (Budlender & Lund, 2011). Only 12 percent of children and 20 percent of adolescents live without their mother (Bray, Gooskens, et. al, 2010). Paternal absence impacts the amount of time that fathers spend with their children, and thus a father-child emotional bond cannot be effectively created in many instances. This has serious implications for the child, who becomes more likely  to be involved with drugs, perform badly in school, lack self esteem, and, later on in life, be imprisoned, have emotional problems in relationships, commit rape or to commit suicide (Taylor, 2014). Paternal absence significantly reduces household income, which could explain the low income status of single- or no-parent households. For example, absent fathers contribute negligibly towards the financial burden of childcare. Of the fathers who are identified, many do not earn enough and are not required to contribute by law on the one hand, and court orders that have been issued are often ignored on the other. The Maintenance Act is poorly enforced. Thus, In a time when women are marrying less, women are increasingly left with a dual burden of breadwinner and childcarer (Budlender & Lund, 2011). Another explanation of the low income status of single- and no-parent households is that unemployed men put off marrying, which prevents low-income households from forming two-parent families. Paternal absence also contributes to the fact that women spend more time on caregiving than men, but it is not the only explanation. For example, the Time Use Survey of 2001 (Statistics South Africa, 2001) reveals that men living with children under the age of 18 years spend an average of 6 minutes a day on childcare, while their female counterparts spend an average of 64 minutes a day. The amount of time that women spend caring for children is higher than men even for those women who do not live in a household with children. An example of the readiness for women to care can be seen in the living arrangements of young immigrant women living in a host family’s household: care for children and housework is traded for living expenses while they search for other accommodation and a job. The high rate of unemployment can also be a contributor to the number of women caring for children. In a situation where households are complex and HIV/AIDS is rife, unemployed women can pick up the burden of caring for children both in their own household and outside (Budlender & Lund, 2011).

When one looks at the other side of the gender coin, maternal absence is sometimes also a feature in South African households. It is common for Xhosa women to live in an urban area, where there is better work, and to leave their young children in their rural homeland in the care of the grandmother (Budlender & Lund, 2011). This practice has historical origins. African men sought work in the mines or in the city in the twentieth century, separated from their families because of influx control. These fathers and husbands were not always successful, and in the 1970’s and 1980’s women also began to leave their homelands in search of work in urban areas. The structure of the household was thus heavily dictated by the state, not only for non-whites. Today, children who live in households in a suburb like Masiphumelele in Cape Town have typically spent a portion of their lives living without their parents, under the care of their grandmother in their rural homeland (Bray, Gooskens, et. al, 2010). As Bray, Gooskens, et. al puts it, these households have an “urban-focused but rural-rooted identity”. ‘Domestic fluidity’ – the ease with which family structures change over a short period of time – is a characteristic of many South African families. The cases mentioned thus far illustrate how the structure of a family impacts on the care that is provided for children living in that family.

I will now describe how the market and state interact with families. Parallel systems of private and public provision of education, healthcare and social services exist in South Africa, which perpetuate existent inequalities. The market caters for those who can afford private care, to the exclusion of those who can’t. However, state initiatives have supported families through grants, primary healthcare, basic education, early childhood development programmes and the Extended Public Works Programme, the last two of which directly address the problem of unemployment (albeit ineffectively). State grants have redistributed wealth across classes and have improved the life chances of children, both for households who access child grants and those who access a state pension (Budlender & Lund, 2011). For example, child grants improve children’s nutrition (Budlender & Lund, 2011). State pensions impact on both the pensioner and the household with whom it is shared. For example, state pensions often lead to the mother of a child leaving the household in search of work, leaving the child with the grandmother.

To summarize, race, class and gender shape the structure of families, which in turn determines who children are cared for and how they are cared for. Apartheid has shaped the structure of families, most notably through the pass laws, which have pulled fathers away from families and placed the responsibility of both childcare and income generation on women. The resulting household is complex and often multi-generational or represents a segment of a family which has its roots in another location. Families are supported by the state financially and through basic education, primary healthcare and free social services, but the quality of state-provided care is inferior to market-provided care and inequalities persist.

[1 276 words]

July 2014

References

Bray, R., Gooskens, I., Moses, S., Kahn, L., & Seekings, J. (2010). Discourses and realities of family life. In Growing up in the new South Africa: Childhood and adolescence in post-apartheid Cape Town. (pp. 48-96). Cape Town: HSRC Press.

Budlender, D., & Lund, F. (2011). South Africa: A legacy of family disruption. Development and Change, 42(4), 925-946.

Statistics South Africa. (2001). A Survey of Time Use. Pretoria: Statistics South Africa.

Taylor, T. (2014, January 28). South Africa's Absent Fathers. Retrieved July 31, 2014, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltLtSxpbcEg