The debates on social reproduction in South Africa focusing on grandmother headed households in Diepkloof, Soweto
Date
2020
Authors
Nkosi, Nokuthula Nokuphiwe
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Abstract
The primary aim of the study was to describe and explore social reproduction in a black family headed by grandmothers in post-apartheid South Africa using a descriptive case study of ten grandmother headed households in Diepkloof-Soweto. Women headed households is not a new
phenomena, but they are the outcomes of the imbalances of apartheid and the migrant labour system which negatively impacted on family life. Now that South Africa is a democratic country and the apartheid laws have been abolished, the prevalence of women headed households in post-apartheid South Africa develops a number of issues that need clarification through theorization and continuous research. This study therefore fills the gap in the literature of social reproduction by focusing on the grandmothers whose families rely on the social grant as their source of income. The argument was that the OAG is crucial to the social reproduction of poor households and the reproduction of daily life in these households. The study shows that social reproduction is still done by women even in old age, which is what has been happening during apartheid, and also the fact that the unpaid care work which is done by women is still not acknowledged. On the other hand, this unpaid care work during apartheid was actually a wage employment for the grandmothers when they worked as childcare givers or as domestic workers to sustain their families. Beyond the material bases of the social reproduction of the families, the study indicates that the care provided by the grandmothers for their families is done for what they perceive as the good of the future generation. This is the grandmother’s ‘axiological’ intervention to ensure for the good of the future so that when they pass away one day their families do not have to suffer.
Description
A thesis submitted n fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts by Dissertation (Development Studies) to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2020