Conflict and negotiation in intergenerational care: Older women’s experiences of caring with the Old Age Grant in South Africa

Abstract

Social policy and welfare provision have converged with socio-economic conditions, cultural beliefs about kin support and intra-household dynamics to position older women as important financial providers in their families. This article draws on the findings of a qualitative study about intergenerational relationships of care in a large township near Cape Town. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with fourteen female Old Age Grant recipients and some of their co-resident adult children. The article focuses on the grant recipients’ experiences of giving and receiving financial support (‘financial care’) in their intergenerational relationships. It also unpacks the intra-household dynamics involved in this caregiving. Although the grant better enabled the women in the study to meet the needs of their households, beliefs about the mutual and shared responsibility for financial caregiving in families informed their expectations of financial assistance from younger kin. When their co-resident younger relatives did earn an income, negotiations around the provision of financial care ensued; generating conflict and reflecting unequal power relations between relatives. These dynamics contributed to the women’s experiences of vulnerability and their high burden of care. In this context, the article examines the state’s role in the care process and how it has contributed to the gendered and generational distribution of care work in families.

Keywords

financial support intergenerational relationships social assistance welfare policy

Introduction

Social welfare policy and provision have shaped intergenerational relationships of care; by upholding traditional divisions of care work within families and by interacting with broader socio-economic and cultural dynamics in South Africa. Research has shown that in a context of widespread poverty and unemployment, women use the Old Age Grant (OAG) to support their younger relatives; that is, they are ‘financial caregivers’ in their families (Kimmuna and Makiwane, 2007; Schatz, 2007; Schatz and Ogunmefun, 2007; Bak, 2008; Mosoetsa, 2011; Sidloyi, 2016). Despite this expansive body of research, less is known about the experiences of negotiation and conflict that may accompany this caregiving. This article discusses the findings of a qualitative study about intergenerational relationships of care in a large township on the outskirts of Cape Town, and seeks to contribute to a fuller understanding of how older women experience financial caregiving in their families.

The findings highlight that the OAG better enabled the women in the study to care for their under- and unemployed children and grandchildren. However, intergenerational negotiation, conflict and inequality formed part of their experiences of financial caregiving. The women rejected the idea that the OAG made them solely responsible for the financial care of their households and they expected their younger, co-resident kin to share this responsibility when they had the means to do so. Although their younger relatives shared these beliefs about financial caregiving, the women struggled to claim assistance from them when they earned an income. Conflict about the use of earnings and the prioritisation of household needs over personal needs accompanied these negotiations for care. That younger relatives could contest and resist the claims made on their earnings highlights the unequal power relations in their households. Furthermore, these intra-household dynamics exacerbated the OAG recipients’ vulnerabilities and burden of care.

Drawing on a political ethic of care, the article examines how the state, through social policy and welfare provision, has played a role in the care process and how it has contributed to the distribution of care work in families. Following this, it is argued that as older women receive care from the state and in turn use the OAG to care for their families, the state should be more attentive and responsive to the women’s experiences of financial caregiving. It goes on to unpack what some of the implications of this attentiveness and responsiveness may look like.

Ubuntu and a political ethic of care

This article considers ‘care’ as a practice, standard and moral disposition, encompassing all the culturally defined activities that ‘maintain, continue and repair’ our world (Tronto, 1993: 103). Furthermore, using Tronto’s (1993) widely cited conceptualisation of care, care is understood as comprising four interconnected phases (caring about, taking care of, caregiving and care-receiving), each corresponding to a moral value (attentiveness, responsibility, competence and responsiveness, respectively).

Writing on the concept in the South African context, scholars have highlighted that care is central to Ubuntu; an African philosophy of communitarianism (Gouws and Van Zyl, 2014; 2015). Ubuntu embodies the idea that people are interconnected and that relationships are based on interdependence and mutual respect (Gouws and Van Zyl, 2015: 173). From this perspective, care is relational, non-stigmatised and fundamental in human wellbeing and relationships (Gouws and Van Zyl, 2014: 108). Importantly, Gouws and Van Zyl (2015) distinguish between ‘Ubuntu-talk’ and ‘Ubuntu-do’. Although Ubuntu-talk may embody values of equality and dignity in caregiving, this may not translate into practice in contexts of social inequality. They argue that a critical perspective of care is thus also necessary so that inequalities in care can be understood and challenged.

Following from this, the article also draws on a political ethic of care which recognises that care is shaped by unequal power relations in families and society (Gouws and Van Zyl, 2014).

While care work is often relegated to the private sphere and devalued, the responsibility for care work is unequally distributed along gender, race, class and age hierarchies (Tronto, 1993). As Bozalek (2014: 60) argued, a political ethic of care questions ‘the distribution of caregiving work in society, the relations of power which affect this work and are affected by it, and the sorts of practices engaged in to ensure the care of dependants’.

Contextualising older women’s intergenerational relationships of care

The post-apartheid state has adopted a predominantly familalist notion of care in social policy. The 1996 White Paper on Social Welfare and the 2012 White Paper on Families in South Africa espouse neoliberal ideas of fostering economic self-reliance while emphasising the family as the primary site of care for vulnerable individuals (Sevenhuijsen et al., 2003; Button et al., 2018). Furthermore, by not accounting for the gendered and generational burden of care in the private sphere, it upholds these divisions of care work in families (Sevenhuijsen et al., 2003). Importantly, the state has positioned itself as ‘facilitating’ and ‘supporting’ caregiving in families, rather than meeting needs for care directly (Sevenhuijsen et al., 2003: 203; Button et al., 2018: 605). Through non-contributory, means-tested social grants, the state provides financial resources to the elderly, disabled and caregivers of children. In the absence of support from the state, able-bodied unemployed working-age adults, in contrast, are largely excluded from the social safety net (Klasen and Woolard, 2009).

This article focuses on recipients of the OAG. Payable to individuals over the age of 60, the OAG provides 70 percent of the elderly, most of whom are black South Africans, with a comparatively large and secure income (equivalent to US$135 per month) (Statistics South Africa, 2017). Although older people have historically been caregivers in their families, intergenerational relationships of care have been reshaped in the contemporary period. Widespread poverty and unemployment, marginal social assistance for the unemployed, HIV/AIDS-related illnesses and deaths, declining marriage rates, the decoupling of motherhood from marriage, and, entrenched and new patterns of labour migration have contributed to the financial, practical and personal needs for care among children and prime-age adults (see also article by Moore and Seekings in this issue). Older kin have, through the OAG, been positioned to address some of these needs for care. Indeed, research shows the redistributive quality of the OAG, which has reduced poverty and improved the economic stability of grant recipients’ households (Case and Deaton, 1998; Burns et al., 2005; Ferreira, 2006).

Older women, however, seem to bear a larger share of this care work. Research in urban and rural areas has pointed specifically to women who use their OAGs and other resources to meet their younger relatives’ care needs (Kimuna and Makiwane, 2007; Schatz, 2007; Schatz and Ogunmefun, 2007; Bak, 2008; Mosoetsa, 2011; Sidloyi, 2016). While limited research exists on how men use the OAG, studies suggest that OAGs received by women, rather than men, translate into spending more on food and less on transportation, alcohol and tobacco (Case and Deaton, 1998), while also improving child nutrition (Duflo, 2003). However, research has shown that school attendance improved and child labour declined in households where men neared OAG-eligibility, which may highlight the positive impact that anticipating an OAG may have in male recipients’ households (Edmonds, 2006).

Gendered differences in older people’s living arrangements also reflect older women as important caregivers in their families. In 2015, 43% of men compared to 13% of women lived in nuclear households, whereas nearly 70% of women versus 40% of men lived in extended households (Statistics South Africa, 2017). Furthermore, with declining marriage rates, women’s longer life expectancy and improved economic independence, female headship is increasing (Posel and Rogan, 2009). Instead of residing with partners, many older women live with younger kin and head multigenerational households (Posel, 2001; Dungumaro, 2008). Female headship has been associated with age, financial provision and decision-making (Posel, 2001). These households are important sites of financial and practical care; being larger and containing more dependents (unemployed adults, children, ill and disabled kin) than their male counterparts (Dungumaro, 2008).

Scholars have sought to explain the gendered and generational divisions of care provision in families. Through the institutionalisation of the male migrant labour system, the apartheid regime interacted with African power structures to entrench ‘extreme’ gendered divisions of care work in families (Bak, 2008: 385). Financial provision became an important marker of manhood while womanhood was closely tied with unpaid care work within households. However, while poverty and unemployment have undermined traditional masculinities, it has reinforced the importance of women’s financial and practical caregiving in ensuring the survival of their households (Mosoetsa, 2011). Mosoetsa (2011) conducted research on poor households in KwaZulu-Natal and highlighted the gendered divisions in household resource provision. Although the precise proportion of men, compared to women, who provide care is unknown, Mosoetsa (2011) found that women were expected to care for their families with their financial resources, while men did not always do the same. Men often cited tradition as entitling them to personal, discretionary spending (2011: 67). Whereas younger women challenged these patriarchal norms, older women seemed to accept this burden of care, viewing it as an extension of their roles as mothers (2011: 69).

Social welfare has thus converged with socio-economic and cultural dynamics to shape intergenerational care. Moreover, in silently upholding traditional divisions of care work in families, the state has, through social policy and welfare provision, arguably entrenched older women’s positions as financial caregivers in their families. Two other sets of dynamics are important when considering older women’s caregiving roles.

Firstly, research has highlighted the importance of African kinship systems in understanding care provision between relatives. Sagner and Mtati (1999: 400) described African kinship as a moral order, structured around generalised reciprocity, that involved mutual obligations of support between kin. Research shows that older people assume responsibility for and meet the care needs of their younger relatives in recognition of these obligations (Sagner and Mtati, 1999; Schatz and Ogunmefun, 2007; Hoffman, 2016). Additionally, they expect care to be reciprocated when a younger relative earns an income (Bohman et al., 2009; Hoffman, 2016). Embodying the value of interdependence, these perceptions of kin support intertwine with the ethos of Ubuntu.

Secondly, although these care relationships were once considered binding and inescapable, scholars now recognise that relatives with unequal power relations and different preferences have space to ‘negotiate’ which needs for care should be met, how and by whom (Finch and Mason, 1993; Seekings, 2008). Little research exists on this topic in South Africa. As such, our understanding of intergenerational relationships of care and the role older women play in these, is incomplete. Some research suggests that younger adults have contested their older relatives’ expectations of financial and practical caregiving. Mosoetsa (2011) found that when daughters had access to an income, many challenged their parents’ gendered expectations of unpaid labour and financial provision. Mathis (2011) reported that young women spoke of themselves as rights-bearing individuals to limit their financial obligations towards their parents. This research may point to intergenerational negotiations over caregiving.

Power relations, and the control of productive resources and wealth, were traditionally based on an intersection of gender, age and lineage in African kinship systems (Carton, 2000; Aboderin, 2006). Additionally, old age has been associated with wisdom, authority and social standing (Møller and Sotshongaye, 2002). The above mentioned contestations may point to shifting power relations in families. If negotiations over resources for financial care take place, how do older women experience these? Do their seniority and economic status help ensure that their expectations of financial care are met by younger kin? What impact does this have on the burden of care in their households? This article draws on the findings of a study about female OAG recipients’ experiences of intergenerational care to provide a fuller understanding of these dynamics.

Methodology

A qualitative study was conducted to explore intergenerational relationships of care in households headed by female OAG recipients. Fourteen households, all located in a township on the outskirts of Cape Town, formed part of the study. The research, which was approved through an institutional ethics review process, examined how financial and non-monetary resources were used across generations of household members to provide financial and practical care. This article focuses on the OAG recipients’ experiences of financial caregiving.

As elaborated upon below, the first author was an outsider in the fieldwork setting, relying on the second author, who is an experienced researcher, activist and long-time resident of the research site. Together we carried out the fieldwork on which this article is based.

We initially used a sampling frame to identify female OAG beneficiaries who headed households in the research area. This was replaced with snowball sampling, as some of the women introduced Thobani and I to their neighbours and relatives and this became a more successful way of meeting potential participants. We approached the women with information about the research and advised them of the voluntary, anonymous and confidential nature of their participation. Based on this, fourteen women provided their informed consent to participate in the research and semi-structured interviews were conducted with them at their homes. After asking the women for permission to approach one of their co-resident adult children or grandchildren, the same process was followed in recruiting younger participants to the study. We conducted interviews with a co-resident younger adult in six of the households.

Most participants opted to speak isiXhosa, their first language, in their interviews. As the first author was not fluent in isiXhosa, the second author translated interview exchanges and helped both the participants and the first author to navigate the interview experience. Button (2016) discusses the challenges that accompanied these language barriers. A two-stage thematic analysis of the interview transcripts was carried out to generate the research findings. Household-level analyses were used to understand the range of experiences related to care provision in each household. Thereafter, a comparative analysis was conducted to compare these experiences across the sample. Pseudonyms are used in the discussion of the findings to protect the participants’ identities and care has been taken to omit the disclosure of other information that could otherwise identify them.

We had to navigate various challenges in doing this fieldwork. Not only is speaking to strangers about family matters frowned upon under isiXhosa custom, but the positionality of the first author in the fieldwork setting made this more difficult. As a young, white South African woman from a middle-class background, who does not have children of her own and who speaks limited isiXhosa, she was often considered an outsider by the participants. The second author drew on his fieldwork experience and his knowledge as a ‘cultural insider’ to help create spaces in which the participants felt comfortable talking to us about their family lives. The first author also tried to convey her desire to learn from the participants, as experts in their own lived experiences. While it often felt easier to build rapport with the younger participants, given our similarities in age and their preference for speaking English, some of the OAG recipients seemed to enjoy the interview process, describing it as an opportunity for them to unload and be listened to. Nonetheless, the outsider position of the first author was never forgotten by the participants. Our differences, and the unequal power relations between us, were highlighted in unexpected ways during the fieldwork. The first author was asked if she could employ some of the OAG recipients as domestic workers and if she could restore to its former glory a building that once was a childcare centre. These requests were made directly to the first author in English, as opposed to both of us, and they were difficult to navigate and had to be declined as sensitively as possible, based on a concern for the ethical and personal boundaries these may have crossed. The first author also tried to explain that, although she was a mlungu (‘white person’), as a student, she did not have the resources to meet these requests. One of her regrets about the study is that she did not pursue the second request further. These dilemmas also put the second author in an uncomfortable and difficult position during these exchanges. These experiences, although also difficult to write about, reflect some of the moral dilemmas that can arise from one’s positionality in the field. They also highlight how the participants perceived the relatively powerful position of the first author within and beyond the research setting and how we were all forced to confront the power relations involved in the research relationship.

The study has several limitations. Given the first author’s outsider positionality, the accounts presented here may not fully reflect the nuances of the participants’ experiences. Additionally, the language barriers discussed above impacted the richness of the data. There are also voices missing from the accounts presented below. Time constraints and difficulties recruiting younger participants (see Button, 2016) meant that not all younger kin in the households in the sample were interviewed and this data is not as detailed as that of the OAG recipients.

Description of the participants and their households

As mentioned above, the research discussed in this article was conducted in a large township that is located near Cape Town. Owing to the country’s legacy of racial discrimination and segregation, it is still predominantly home to black South African residents. Poverty is widespread, with most residents falling in the lowest income quintiles in the city (Seekings, 2013).

All the participants in the study were black South Africans. The OAG recipients ranged between the ages of 60 and 84 and, like many residents in the area, were born in the Eastern Cape. Few had completed secondary schooling. All except three women were married but later widowed or separated from their husbands. Through these experiences, they migrated to Cape Town from the 1980s, were employed as domestic workers and used their earnings to establish their households. They form part of approximately 40% of households in the township that are female-headed (Seekings, 2013). The six younger participants, three women and three men, were between 22 and 32 years of age and were the OAG recipients’ children and grandchildren. All were unmarried and had children of their own living with them. While most had completed high school, they all had difficulty accessing tertiary education and securing permanent employment.

The households varied in their composition. Four of the households were made up of the OAG beneficiary and her minor grandchild. The remaining ten were multigenerational; ranging from three to nine residents (the OAG recipient, and one or more of her adult children and grandchildren). Of these larger households, four contained ‘stably’ employed younger adults (referred to as ‘SEYA households’). All women, they worked in manufacturing, domestic work and hospitality on a low-wage, part-time basis. However, they were considered stably employed as they had been in these jobs for over a year. The remaining six households also contained younger adults, but none were in stable employment (referred to as ‘NOSEYA households). Instead, they moved in and out of low-paid employment on an ad hoc basis.

The OAG recipients’ experiences of financial caregiving

The following sections discuss how the OAG recipients in the study experienced financial caregiving in their intergenerational relationships. The findings have been divided into four interrelated parts, with the aim of untangling various aspects of these caregiving experiences. The first two sections locate the women’s roles as financial caregivers in a broader social welfare, socio-economic and cultural context. The first section unpacks how the women were not only care-receivers from the state but also how they were positioned as financial caregivers in their households through welfare provision, socio-economic conditions and cultural beliefs. The next section examines more closely perceptions about the responsibility for financial caregiving within families. The OAG recipients and the younger participants agreed that financial caregiving should be a reciprocal and collective responsibility that younger kin should share when earning an income. The third and fourth sections highlight the lived experiences of this caregiving. Perceptions about the collective responsibility for financial caregiving did not always translate into practice. Instead, this care often involved negotiation, conflict and inequality. These intra-household dynamics contributed to the vulnerabilities and burden of care experienced by the OAG recipients in the study.

The OAG recipients as care-receivers and caregivers

In receiving the OAG, the women were both care-receivers from the state and caregivers to their co-resident kin. As care-receivers, they described the OAG as a crucial resource; it not only reduced their financial insecurity but strengthened their agency in other aspects of their lives. For example, the OAG gave Olivia (66) the financial independence to determine her living arrangements and avoid the perceived insecurities of romantic relationships:

I am feeling much better now because each month I expect that I am going to get an Old Age Grant. At the end of the day, if you have a relationship, once that person is tired, he’s going to say: ‘Get out of my house!’ It’s fine now. I am staying with my children and I am surviving.

However, many women expressed that they were under continual strain as the primary breadwinners in their households. A historical legacy of impoverishment and disadvantage meant that their children and grandchildren had difficulty accessing tertiary education. This impeded their employment in a job market which emphasised white-collar qualifications. Consequently, unemployment was common. When employment was found, it was frequently low-paid and on a part-time or ad hoc basis. Furthermore, in the absence of state assistance for the unemployed, younger kin were often financial dependents rather than providers in their households.

In this context, the OAG recipients were ‘financial caregivers’ to their younger kin. The term ‘financial caregiving’ is commonly used to describe the provision of ‘money management assistance’; where one person helps another to manage his or her finances (Plander, 2013: 18). However, it is used here to mean the provision of financial support from one person to another. Furthermore, drawing on Tronto’s (1993) conceptualisation of care, the term ‘financial caregiving’ is used to denote and make sense of the phases and moral values of care that may underlie financial support. For the OAG recipients, providing ‘financial care’ to their younger kin involved more than the provision of financial resources. Firstly, the women ‘cared about’ and were attentive to their children and grandchildren’s needs for financial support; they recognised the existence of these needs and resolved that they should be met. Moreover, they assumed responsibility for addressing these needs. Tronto (1993: 133) noted that notions of responsibility are contextual. It is argued here that, for the OAG recipients, this assumption of responsibility was informed by an evaluation of their younger relatives’ care needs in a context of high unemployment. Additionally, perceived obligations of kin support underlay their sense of responsibility for their younger kin. Resonating with existing research, the women expressed that a reciprocal relationship of care existed between them and their younger kin and that even if it stretched them financially, ‘good’ (grand)mothers took care of their (grand)children in need (Sagner and Mtati, 1999; Schatz and Ogunmefun, 2007; Bohman et al., 2009). Many alluded to these perceived care obligations:

I am supposed to share my money because there is no other [income] . . . You are supposed to take care of them because you can’t throw your son or daughter away (Mongoli, 84).

The women also directly met these needs for care by translating their financial resources into consumables (groceries and electricity) and non-consumables (funeral insurance) that helped to ensure the wellbeing of their households. Here, giving financial support to their household members also became intertwined with the provision of practical care by, for example, shopping for groceries and preparing meals. As illustrated by Mongoli (84), this work required considerable planning and effort, especially when resources became scarcer during the month:

I have to sit down and use my common sense and think: ‘What am I going to cook today?’ Especially at this time of the month, you are supposed to sit down and think because there is nothing in the cupboards.

As care-receivers, the younger participants acknowledged the importance of the care provided by the OAG recipients. This was expressed with the sentiment that they fulfilled the roles traditionally associated with both mothers and fathers, namely unpaid care work and breadwinning.

Although the OAG recipients had personal needs for care, these were not directly expressed during their interviews. In speaking about how their grants were used, many reflected that the OAG barely covered the household essentials. Even the proceeds from informal rotational savings groups were used to cover larger household expenses; renovations, furniture and groceries for special occasions. This may suggest that the needs of their households superseded spending on their personal needs.

These findings highlight how the social grant system provided financial resources to some household members but not others. In a setting of high unemployment and poverty, this welfare provision shaped the needs for care in the households in the study and positioned the OAG recipients as capable of meeting these needs. Additionally, the state’s familialist notion of care and its implicit maintenance of traditional divisions of care work within the private sphere have converged with perceived obligations of kin support and high levels of unemployment to entrench the women as key financial caregivers in their households.

Perceptions about financial caregiving as a joint responsibility

As mentioned above, the OAG recipients believed that care between relatives should be reciprocal. Following from this, the women expected their younger kin to be attentive to the needs of their households when employment was found and perceived that they should share the responsibility for meeting these needs by reciprocating the financial care they had received in the past. They also expected younger relatives to first help cover the household expenses, through financial contributions or goods-in-kin, before addressing their personal expenses:

If he manages to get a job, he’s supposed to assist me in the household. He can have some money for his personal use but he is supposed to know that you are supposed to start in the household instead of using all the money for your personal use (Sindiswa, 66)

These expectations were placed on both male and female kin. Importantly, the women did not view the OAG as replacing a younger relative’s responsibility for reciprocal financial care:

It is very important if a child is working to support the family. If you raise your child, no matter you are getting an Old Age Grant, your child is supposed to support you. Not to say: “No, you have got an Old Age Grant, use your grant.” Your child does not have that right. (Mongoli, 84)

In using a rights discourse, Mongoli refuted the idea that social grants had freed individuals from their intergenerational care obligations. As reflected by Sta (65), reciprocating financial care drew younger relatives into a joint project of looking after the collective: ‘Once a child starts working and getting a salary, he is supposed to assist in the household so that they can work together as a family.’ These beliefs, with their emphasis on shared responsibility and collective wellbeing, resonate with the ethos of Ubuntu.

The younger participants seemed to share these beliefs about kin support and financial caregiving. They acknowledged the mutual relationship of care between themselves and the older women in their households. They also recognised their older relatives’ expectations of financial care; that, when employed, they should provide financial support to their households and that this support should be prioritised over personal spending:

When I was not working, I was depending on my mother. But now I am working and getting a salary, I am supposed to support my mother. I can support my family and manage to get the things that I need. But the thing I am supposed to do first is to make sure that my mother is surviving. (Fundiswa, 32)

These findings show that, in principle, the OAG recipients and the younger participants agreed on the reciprocal nature of and joint responsibility for financial caregiving in their households. As discussed below, this didn’t easily translate into practice, often resulting in negotiation and conflict.

Financial caregiving as involving intergenerational negotiation and conflict

Despite the shared perceptions of financial caregiving discussed above, the OAG recipients expressed that in practice, it was not always easy to secure financial care from younger relatives when they were employed. In the SEYA households, the women had conversations with their employed younger relatives each month to tell them about their household’s expenses. Melta (76) spoke about this in relation to her granddaughters:

As a parent, I sit down with them, especially over month end, and explain what we need to do. If we need more groceries, I explain that we should get this and this and that we should contribute money so that we can all get what we need.

These conversations could be interpreted as attempts to negotiate for financial care from their employed household members. In drawing attention to the household needs, Melta may have tried to create awareness among her younger kin that financial care was needed. She may have also conveyed ideas about the joint responsibility for financial caregiving and tried to reinforce a sense of obligation to share this responsibility. At the time of the fieldwork, the women had managed to secure this financial care. However, some implied that this support was not guaranteed: ‘Just say thanks if your daughters still listen to you when they are bringing the money.’ (Melta, 76).

Similarly, the women in the NOSEYA households attempted to negotiate for the provision of financial care when their younger kin earned an income. However, many had not been able to secure this intergenerational support. Mongoli (84) relayed such an experience:

I raised my son and then my son had a child. Once my son got a job, I asked him to assist me to raise his child. He said: “No, I don’t have enough. You must rather stop paying the funeral policy for him instead of asking money from me.

Rather than provide financial support, Mongoli’s son suggested that she should cease the funeral insurance payments for his child. Her son may have implied that his assistance was not necessary as she could manage on her own by ‘prioritising’ her expenditure. However, for Mongoli and the other women, funeral insurance was an important way of caring for their households. It ensured the financial security of their families in relation to an unpredictablelife event that usually exacerbated economic hardship. Therefore, to cease these payments would be synonymous to not providing care.

Given the limited data relating to the OAG recipients’ younger household members, it is only possible to suggest tentative explanations for the patterns of intergenerational negotiation and financial caregiving discussed above. The OAG recipients in the SEYA households lived with relatives who had been employed in their jobs for over a year. These women may have been able to establish more consistent patterns of financial caregiving with their employed kin. In contrast, the younger participants in the NOSEYA households were employed sporadically. Without knowing when or how they would earn again, they may have more readily seized the opportunity for personal spending (Spiropoulos, 2017) rather than fulfilling the OAG recipients’ caregiving expectations. Gender dynamics may have also shaped these outcomes. All the younger adults in the SEYA households were women. Although there is an absence of comparative data on ‘stably employed’ young men, gendered roles may have contributed to the younger women being more willing to share their incomes with their households. All the younger participants in the NOSEYA households, in contrast, were men. Here gendered social norms may have operated against the OAG recipients, making it more difficult for them to claim financial care from male relatives who may have felt justified in using their earnings at their own discretion (Mosoetsa, 2011).

As Tronto (1993: 109) noted, care often involves conflict. In this study, conflict was experienced alongside negotiations for financial care, albeit in different ways across the households in the sample.

As discussed above, the OAG recipients approached their income-earning children and grandchildren with the aim of securing financial care from them. However, the younger participants interpreted this as an attempt to exert control over their earnings. They described their older female relatives as judgemental about how they managed and spent their wages:

Sometimes our parents want to control our money. We must give it to them so that they can spend it for us . . . They will ask you want you did with your wages. They think we waste our money on things that are not important. (Kuhle, 27)

The younger participants may have perceived their older kin’s attempts to ‘control’ their earnings as a way of ensuring that their money was used ‘correctly’; that is, on household needs first. Although the younger participants acknowledged the expectations of financial care placed on them, they also expressed the desire to spend their earnings on their personal wants and needs. In the SEYA households, the younger participants recognised the importance of their financial contributions but were also frustrated with these care arrangements. Given their low wages and the persistent financial needs of their households, they felt that this financial caregiving crowded out their capacity to meet their own needs:

Sometimes I plan on buying something for myself. But when I arrive in the household, I find out that something is needed in the household. I have to buy that thing which is needed and then I don’t manage to buy what I was planning for myself. It hurts me a lot. (Fundiswa, 32)

These feelings were exasperated by the perception that their older kin did not understand or recognise that younger adults had their own expenses to cover:

It’s difficult but they must understand how we feel about the money, our money. . . If I am working, I am working very hard to get what I want. So, I wish that someone can understand that yes, I will give her money but I need to do things for myself. (Kuhle, 27)

In the NOSEYA households, conflict arose not only because the women were dissatisfied with the lack of financial care from their younger kin, but also because they disapproved of how these earnings were spent. Sindiswa and her son, Richard, conveyed their experiences of conflict on this matter:

When I am working, I maybe have R300 just to drink alcohol . . . And then I drink it out and maybe tomorrow I don’t have a cent left . . . Sometimes, normally, when I am drunk, I can’t lie about it, I get drunk and then she says: ‘Why do you do this? You must stop.’ And then we start fighting. (Richard, 28)

I have no choice because I cannot throw him away, out of this house because he is my son. If he is not working, he is not working. If he is drinking too much, I have no choice. I have to survive with what he is doing. (Sindiswa, 66)

Like many of the other women, Sindiswa was unable to change her son’s behaviour or negotiate for financial care. Patriarchal social norms may have contributed to this. For instance, Richard went on to mention: ‘As a man, you have too much pride. Sometimes you find out that you are wrong, but now it’s coming from a woman.’ Richard seemed unwilling to accept his mother’s critique of the use of his earnings. Underlying this may have been the belief that as a man, he was entitled to make his own financial decisions and, even if mistaken, should not be accountable to his mother for them.

The younger participants in the NOSEYA households also expressed the view that their older kin did not understand the importance of discretionary spending. Malusi (23) reflected that this was an important incentive in searching for and continuing employment:

If I am spending money on something that I love, that would motivate me to go back and work . . . Getting money, girlfriends, going to the tavern, all those things motivate people to go to work.

These findings show that, in practice, negotiation and conflict formed part of the OAG recipients’ experiences of financial caregiving in their intergenerational relationships. Furthermore, they may have felt disempowered in having their authority and caregiving expectations contested when negotiating for financial care from their younger kin. While the women struggled to secure financial care from their younger relatives, their younger kin seemed able to resist, or, at least contest, the claims made on their earnings. These experiences may, therefore, point to unequal power relations within the households in the study.

Financial caregiving as involving emotional and financial vulnerability

The intra-household dynamics described above contributed to the emotional and financial vulnerabilities experienced by the OAG recipients. The women expressed that younger relatives who failed to reciprocate financial care as expected, did not ‘care about’ their elders:

Once your child gets a job, your child just forgets that you suffered and struggled to raise him or her . . . You raise your children but at the end of the day, your children don’t care about you. (Nomanzi, 65)

These sentiments highlight the connection between financial and emotional care. For the OAG recipients, the provision of financial care by a younger relative was also an act of emotional care; of acknowledgement, concern and affection.

The OAG recipients in the SEYA households received financial care from their employed household members. However, the perceived precarity of this caregiving worried them. Although their younger kin occasionally had the financial means to assist them, the women in the NOSEYA households remained solely responsible for the financial care of their households. The intra-household dynamics discussed above contributed to their burden of care, placing them under immense financial strain. Five of the six OAG recipients living in NOSEYA households regularly borrowed from informal moneylenders (‘mashonisas’) to meet their households’ needs. These practices, and the high interest rates attached to the loans (up to 50%), meant that the women had become trapped in cycles of indebtedness, further increasing their emotional and financial vulnerability:

You know, once you borrow money from mashonisas, you borrow each and every time. Each time I receive my grant, I am supposed to pay the mashonisa and borrow something again so that I can manage to cover all the needs we have in the household. It’s traumatising. (Pamela, 70)

The women felt that they had little choice in borrowing from informal moneylenders; given their stretched financial capacities and the absence of financial contributions from their younger kin. These experiences highlight how intergenerational power relations and negotiations over financial caregiving impacted the burden of care and vulnerabilities experienced by some of the OAG recipients.

Discussion and conclusion

This article has discussed how fourteen female OAG recipients experienced financial caregiving in their intergenerational relationships. As part of this, the article highlighted how these women used the OAG to meet their co-resident children and grandchildren’s needs for care. This encompassed the phases and moral values of care developed by Tronto (1993). The women had an awareness of, and cared about, the needs of their younger kin. Despite the strain on their financial competencies, they also assumed responsibility for these needs and undertook the work to directly meet these needs. Furthermore, as care-receivers, their younger relatives responded to and acknowledged this care.

The article also sought to contribute towards a fuller understanding of the OAG recipients’ experiences of financial caregiving, by exploring the intra-household dynamics involved in this care provision. The OAG recipients believed that the provision of financial resources for the care of their households was a collective responsibility that should be shared when younger kin were employed. Although the younger participants shared these beliefs, claiming financial caregiving from younger kin often involved intergenerational negotiation and conflict. While the OAG recipients prioritised their households’ needs over meeting their own, their younger kin felt strongly about also using their earnings to address their own needs and wants. Borrowing from Gouws and Van Zyl (2015), these findings could point to differences between Ubuntu-talk and Ubuntu-do. They could also be interpreted as a weakening of the ethos of Ubuntu among younger generations. However, it is argued here that younger kin do still value interdependence and mutual care but they may be engaged in a process of ‘working out’ the meaning of their care obligations for themselves, rather than simply adhering to the expectations of older relatives.

Resonating with existing research, the OAG did not increase the women’s social standing in their households (Mosoetsa, 2011). Despite their seniority and economic status, they struggled to secure financial care from their younger kin. This contributed to the burden of care and the vulnerabilities they experienced. These experiences may also point to unequal power relations within the households. Gendered social norms, especially between the OAG recipients and their male kin, may have contributed to these inequalities. Additionally, research on intergenerational relationships in the post-apartheid period has highlighted how older people have attributed the loss of respect from younger relatives to the democratic culture of human rights (Møller and Sotshongaye, 2002; Mathis, 2011). The state’s discourse of rights may have contributed to younger household members being able to resist the traditional authority and caregiving expectations of older kin, by enabling them to claim rights to equality and independence.

A political ethic of care be used to examine the state’s role in the care process and in the way care work is distributed in families. The state recognised elderly people as in need of care and, through the social grant system, has taken some responsibility for meeting these care needs. As care recipients from the state, the women relied on the OAG as an important resource to mitigate hardship. However, in assuming responsibility for the care of the elderly, the state should be more attentive and responsive to how the OAG is used; as a resource to also meet the needs of unemployed and dependent younger kin. The article has highlighted the state’s role in shaping these care needs and the ways in which they are met. State welfare provision, including its familalist underpinnings, has combined with socio-economic conditions, cultural beliefs around kin support and intra-household dynamics to establish older women as important financial caregivers in their households.

Recognising older women not only as care-receivers but also as caregivers raises the moral notion of competence (Tronto, 1993). How well older women provide care, and more importantly, whether and how well they cope with this caregiving, become important considerations. This and other research has highlighted how widespread unemployment and an absence of state support for unemployed prime-aged adults has increased older women’s burdens of care, placing them under great financial and emotional strain (Schatz and Ogunmefun, 2007; Mosoetsa, 2011). It is argued here that the moral notions of attentiveness, responsibility and responsiveness require that the state should act to ease this burden of care. This could involve bringing the unemployed into the social safety net, improving access to employment, providing greater support to small and informal sector businesses and increasing support for low-paid workers, especially addressing the precarity of their employment experiences. This might better enable un- and underemployed workers to participate in the collective project of caring for their families, while also helping them meet their own needs for care.

Furthermore, the article has highlighted that financial resources, including the OAG, are used in spaces of inequality and conflict. The question of whether the state could intervene to achieve greater equity in intergenerational relationships is difficult to answer. A step in the right direction would be to more explicitly recognise power relations in families, instead of invisibilising them in social policy (Gouws and Van Zyl, 2014). Additionally, while the state has made strides in trying to address gender inequality, perhaps more attention could be paid to how gender and generational inequalities intersect to reproduce the burdens of care experienced by different family members.

The findings discussed here reflect further avenues for research. The study highlighted intergenerational negotiations over financial caregiving but more detailed research on this topic would improve our understandings of inequality and care in families. Similarly, additional research on the care experiences of younger people and men is required. Lastly, while this article highlighted some of the vulnerabilities that the women experienced in their intergenerational relationships, future research could provide insight into how they also exercise agency and resistance.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

An earlier version of this article was published as ‘Intergenerational care, negotiation and conflict: Female state pensioners’ experiences of financial caregiving in low-income, multigenerational households’, CSSR Working Paper 415 (Cape Town: Centre for Social Science Research, University of Cape Town). The authors are grateful to the anonymous referees from Critical Social Policy whose valuable comments and insights on subsequent versions of this manuscript have greatly improved the ideas reflected here.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was made possible by support from the NRF Freestanding, Innovation and Scarce Skills Development Fund [grant number 94583] and by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Author biographies

Kirsty Button is a PhD student in the Families and Societies Research Unit at the Centre for Social Science Research at the University of Cape Town. Her PhD is on the negotiation of care and the use of the Old Age Grant in intergenerational relationships in contemporary South Africa. She has published research in the Journal of Southern African Studies and Current Sociology.

Thobani Ncapai is a Research Assistant at the Centre for Social Science Research at the University of Cape Town. During the 16 years that he has worked in this capacity, Thobani has been involved in numerous research projects across South Africa, in the areas of HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention, social cohesion, land occupation and housing, social mobility and family and intergenerational relationships. Thobani has also been involved in HIV/AIDS activism in South Africa, working closely with the Treatment Action Campaign and Médecins Sans Frontiéres.

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