Formal and Informal Support to Child- and Youth-Headed Households in South Africa
Year: 2011
Type: preprint
Abstract: This paper examines assumptions about the provision of support for children and young people in child-headed households in sub-Saharan Africa. The South African example is used to assess appropriate family- and community-based support. The South African Children’s Act proposes that an adult mentor, should support child-headed households. The mentorship scheme as well as other orphan support programmes is based on the assumption that the extended family and community assist orphaned and vulnerable children in accessing support. The question is whether the extended family and community are able and willing to provide this support. In this paper we address this question by exploring the ‘use-value’ of the social relationships of child-headed households in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. We discuss the kind of support children receive, whether this helps in gaining access to other resources, and if this support can be considered sufficient by exploring children’s interpretations of support. The fieldwork had an ethnographic nature and involved three periods for a total of one and a half years (between December 2003 and May 2006) in the area of Ibhayi, one of the former black townships in Port Elizabeth (Eastern Cape). For the purpose of this paper, we consider eighteen households of which most youngsters had been under the age of 18 when the household became child-headed. We studied coping from two perspectives: coping as a household that needs to fulfil material demands and coping as ‘children’ who have to fulfil the role of their former caregiver. Most information was gained through seventy-three -one-to-one interviews with the children. Most child-headed households did not receive much support from relatives, neighbours or the Department of Social Development. The social relationships of child-headed households had little use-value. This raises serious questions about the viability of the propagated family and community support, and consequently about the suggested mentorship scheme. We suggest that the proposed interventions of providing children with adult support should start prior to parental death. Additionally, child-headed households should not be viewed as the only solution for children who are not cared for by relatives or the community. More attention paid to alternative care options.
Source: SSRN Electronic Journal
Author: Diana van Dijk
Language: English
Subfield: Development
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: No poverty
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2259323452