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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Intergenerational Family Care: Legacy of the Past, Implications for the Future |
Author: | Burman, Sandra |
Year: | 1996 |
Periodical: | Journal of Southern African Studies |
Volume: | 22 |
Issue: | 4 |
Period: | December |
Pages: | 585-598 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | South Africa |
Subjects: | apartheid townships care of the aged Women's Issues Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Cultural Roles Family Life Women and Their Children Sex Roles |
External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/2637158 |
Abstract: | In 1987 the Socio-Legal Unit at the University of Cape Town investigated care by and of the elderly in the African townships around the city, and from 1992-1994 it undertook a similar study in several lower-income coloured townships. The first study revealed the particular but often hidden impact on elderly Africans of apartheid legislation in its many aspects, frequently as a consequence of their child-care functions. Both Africans and coloureds were affected in unforeseen ways by group areas legislation, the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act and its residual consequences, and the differential provision of relevant services: health, housing, educational and recreational facilities, and pension payments. The data highlighted the very different effects apartheid had on child care and the position of the elderly in the African and coloured communities, owing particularly in Cape Town to the operation of the Coloured Labour Preference Area policy and the different controls on housing allocation by separate authorities. As well as the immediate consequences for household patterns, the paper traces the long-term implications for mutual family support and for care of the elderly. In addition, in looking to the interface between family care and necessary State provision in a future South Africa, the article spells out some of the consequences for future welfare arrangements by the State. Notes, ref., sum. |