Gender, Generation and Urban Living Conditions in Southern Africa

To adapt to urban conditions and establish a decent and sustainable life, women and men in the recently urbanized areas of Southern Africa develop, negotiate and renegotiate new relationships and spaces between genders and generations at household and community levels. Growing poverty, the HIV/AIDS pandemic and changing socioeconomic and household demographic structures have made the struggle more difficult than ever before. They have forced the elderly and young people to take up unexpected roles and responsibilities. Living arrangements have changed, grandmother- and child-headed households are new phenomena, and gender and intergenerational boundaries have been crossed.

How has urbanization and the above processes influenced the way women and men relate to each other in their everyday life? How do they view gender-specific rules and practices? How are relations of power, access and control over resources worked out? How do these relations affect generational and intergenerational support? How are gender, generational culture, social and legal underpinnings on the meaning and use of resources and living spaces adapted to urban environments?

This book, published under the Gender Research on Urbanization Planning Housing and Everyday Life (GRUPHEL) Programme within the Institute for Southern African Studies (ISAS) at the National University of Lesotho, addresses some of these issues. Using gender, generation and concepts of social justice as the basis and tools for analyzing the research data, the 12 papers in this volume address how the GRUPHEL themes relate to the everyday living experiences of respondents. From intersectional analyses of their urban living conditions, a number of issues have emerged. First, partly due to HIV/AIDS, orphan- and child-headed households have become a common phenomenon in most countries within the region. Unlike in the past, when orphans were integrated within extended families, many orphans now constitute independent households. Boys and girls in child-headed households have taken on caring responsibilities that are normally the role of adults. They adopt livelihood strategies that turn out to be gendered and in accordance with the differing ages of the children. And the legal system and state institutions often fail to protect orphans’ rights over deceased parents’ property.

Second, the situation of elderly people has been affected by HIV/AIDS, which has claimed the lives of many young people. Instead of being cared for, it emerges that elderly women in various cities in the region have become providers and caregivers to their grandchildren and relatives affected by HIV/AIDS (including their own children), often with severely constrained resources. The caring role remains gendered; despite their social status as elders, women are still expected to carry on in a care-giving role. Third, several chapters in this book reveal young people’s desire for an independent living space. Families try to conform to cultural norms that require separate living spaces according to gender and generation. Such arrangements sometimes increase young women’s workload and may expose them to sexual harassment or abuse. Young women have been more active than young men in their efforts to access independent housing. They rely on social networks within and outside their neighbourhood to bypass the official waiting list.

Fourth, gendered and generational inheritance and property rights are a recurring theme in many of the chapters. Despite the legal pluralism, and social, cultural, economic and demographic transformations experienced in Southern Africa over recent decades, women (especially married women) continue to be considered as minors, and are excluded from property ownership and inheritance. Finally, several chapters highlight the struggle for space, and the significance of housing in the lives of the many low-income households in the region. Ownership of housing is a central strategy for urban li