Madhavan
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 67377 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Madhavan |
| APELLIDO | Madhavan |
| FIRMA | MADHAVAN |
| AFILIACIONES | University of Maryland, College Park |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6216-3612 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 56 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 500 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 56 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2001 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2025 |
| ÍNDICE H | 12 |
The nexus of the risk of depression and residential mobility for urban poor mothers
Introduction: In Africa, the nexus between mental well-being and residential mobility is understudied, especially in urban settings. World Health Organization estimates show that the African continent, as a whole, has some of the world's highest rates of postpartum depressive disorders. Understanding how residential mobility shapes the risk of depression among urban poor mothers in African contexts is of high importance to public health, given th…
Integrating the In‐Laws
Objective This study compares affinal kin relationships in low‐income and higher‐income families in Nairobi, Kenya. Background In most studies of kinship structure and relationships in sub‐Saharan Africa, culture serves as the basis upon which norms and expectations of kin are differentiated. While important, within the context of increasing economic inequality, it may be that marriage and kinship expectations and practices are also increasingly …
Connecting With Shosho
A body of scholarship has demonstrated that grandmothers provide critical support to their adult children and grandchildren across Africa. We examine the extent to which grandmothers provide support in a low-income, urban context where grandmothers are employed and do not live in intergenerational arrangements. We (1) describe the composition of living grandparents and the type of support their adult daughters and grandchildren received from them…
Does Marriage Benefit Maternal Mental Health? New Evidence from Nairobi, Kenya
It has long been known that marriage is a critical correlate of mental health, primarily through relationship quality and support from partner. However, in contexts where couples struggle to maintain a healthy relationship and marriage is an increasingly protracted process, the benefits of marriage for women's mental health are far from assured. In this analysis, we draw on survey and qualitative data from a longitudinal study in two low-income c…
Measuring Union Formalization for a New Generation of Family Demography
Despite repeated calls for improved measures of marriage as a process in sub-Saharan Africa, large-scale surveys continue to rely on static marital status. As a result, there is an incomplete understanding of the effects of marriage on outcomes of interest. We use qualitative and survey data from a longitudinal study of 1,203 young mothers residing in informal settlements of Nairobi, Kenya, to (1) describe the development of an innovative measure…
Families on the space-time continuum
ObjectiveIn this article, I propose a new approach to study the opportunities and challenges for low-income families through a focus on two key dimensions of family life: time and space. I show how the interaction of these two dimensions produces a range of scenarios for different types of social support to emerge.BackgroundThe space-time continuum (STC) is a theoretical framework in physics that removes the distinction between time and space and…
Parenting in place
Migration research tends to treat childrearing as a secondary role for migrants. By prioritising the economic objectives of migration, most models present migrants as either delaying childbearing or, if they have young children, not living with them. However, migration has become increasingly feminised, the types of mobility more varied, while the returns to migration remain uncertain at best. At the same time, norms around childrearing are shift…
Post-migration emotional well-being among Black South Africans
Internal migration has been an institutionalized part of life for Black South Africans from the 1800s, when men left their rural homes to work in mines, through apartheid and into the present. Like other settings in the Global South, we know surprisingly little about the emotional well-being of migrants, especially in sub-Saharan African contexts. We investigate changes in the emotional well-being of 2281 working-age Black South Africans after mi…
One hand does not bring up a child
Childrearing in sub-Saharan Africa is often viewed as collaborative, where children benefit from support from kin. For single mothers living in informal settlements, kin networks may be highly dispersed and offer little day-to-day childrearing support, but
Embracing Disruptions of Identity
Efforts are underway to globalize sociology in the United States through study abroad experiences. At the same time, there is a push to extend the reach of such programs to students of color. We use student journal entries and fieldnotes from trips to South Africa to analyze how students of color grapple with a disruption of identity in a Black majority setting. Findings reveal that students were challenged by new axes of identity, namely, langua…
Single mothers coping with food insecurity in a Nairobi slum
With high urbanisation rates, cities in sub-Saharan Africa are contending with food insecurity. Urban studies scholars have approached the issue mainly from the perspective of food deserts. We adapt Sen’s ‘resource bundles’ and Watts and Bohles’s ‘space of vulnerability’ concepts to examine food insecurity as a function of both tangible and intangible resources. Moreover, we also interrogate the role of kin in strengthening safety nets for the ur…
Modernizing Marriage
Economic Inequality and Divergence in Family Formation in Sub-Saharan Africa
Economic inequality has been rising in many sub-Saharan African countries alongside rapid changes to union and family formation. In high-income countries marked by rising inequality, union and family formation practices have diverged across socioeconomic statuses, with intergenerational social and health consequences for the disadvantaged. In this study, we address whether there is also evidence of demographic divergence in low-income settings. S…
Perceived quality of life and living arrangements among older rural South Africans
This study explores how living arrangements influence perceived quality of life in an elderly population in rural South Africa. We use data from the longitudinal World Health Organization Study of Global Ageing and Adult Health Survey (WHO-SAGE) and from the Agincourt Health and Socio-Demographic Surveillance System (HDSS). On average, older men and women who reside in single-generation and complex-linked multigenerational households report worse…
Internal migration and child health in Malawi
Distance or location? How the geographic distribution of kin networks shapes support given to single mothers in urban Kenya
With increasing urbanisation and mobility underway across sub-Saharan Africa, kin groups are becoming spatially dispersed. The extent of support provided by kin to one another is likely to vary with this geospatial positioning. Because most data collection is restricted to the co-residential household, we have little knowledge of the geospatial dimensions of kin groups of which a large part is beyond household boundaries, and even less insight in…
Measuring extended families over time in informal settlements in Nairobi, Kenya
BACKGROUND: Researchers have increasingly turned to longitudinal data to understand how the family environment of children changes over time and how this change affects their well-being. While the value of such efforts is clear, the inherent challenges of collecting robust data over time may limit or bias our understanding of family complexity. OBJECTIVE: Drawing on data from an exploratory study on kinship structure and support for low income si…
Gendered Emotional Support and Women's Well-Being in a Low-Income Urban African Setting
In most contexts, emotional support is crucial for the well-being of low-income single women and their children. Support from women may be especially important for single mothers because of precarious ties to their children's fathers, the prevalence of extended matrifocal living arrangements, and gendered norms that place men as providers of financial rather than emotional support. However, in contexts marked by economic insecurity, spatial dispe…
Kin support and child health
Living Arrangements, Disability and Gender of Older Adults Among Rural South Africa
This study underscores the need to examine living arrangements and disability through a gendered lens, with particular attention to heterogeneity among multigenerational living arrangements. Some living arrangements may take a greater toll on older persons than others. Important policy implications for South Africa and other LMICs emerge among vibrant debates about the role of social welfare programs in improving the health of older individuals
Household structure vs. composition
Despite the wealth of literature on household structure and children's educational outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa, the conceptual basis of these effects has not been well articulated. We have shown the value of unpacking household structure to better understand how gender norms and gendered resource allocations impact education
Social Positioning of Older Persons in Rural South Africa
The South African context challenges the conventional categorisation of older persons as dependent after a certain age. The concurrence of old-age pensions, high unemployment, high HIV prevalence, and frailty related to ageing necessitate a more dynamic approach to understanding older persons' social positioning. We examine the extent of change in older persons' social positioning within their households and the correlates of change in a rural co…
Moving beyond the household
Across settings, it has been shown that the co-residential household is an insufficient measure of family structure and support. However, it continues to be the primary means of population data collection. To address this problem, we developed a new instrument, the Kinship Support Tree (KST), to collect kinship structure and support data on co-residential and non-residential kin and tested it on a sample of 462 single mothers and their children i…
Who Helps Single Mothers in Nairobi? The Role of Kin Support
Single mothers often turn to their extended kin for financial assistance and to help with child care. Such support may be especially important in areas of high poverty and poor environmental conditions. Using novel kinship data, this article assesses the extent of support given by more than 3,000 relatives to 462 single mothers living in a slum area of Nairobi, Kenya. Contrary to stereotypes about families in sub-Saharan Africa, the active kin ne…
Father Contact Following Union Dissolution for Low-Income Children in Urban South Africa
Black fathers in South Africa face enormous challenges remaining involved in their children's lives as a result of very high levels of unemployment and union instability. We use data from the Birth to Twenty (Bt20) cohort study to describe trajectories of father contact in the lives of children who have experienced a parental union dissolution and examine the influence of life stage of child at time of union dissolution and mother's entry into ne…
Fosterage patterns in the age of Aids
Women's social networks and child survival in Mali
Absent Breadwinners
The sites for earning a living and for maintaining a family, of production and reproduction, remain geographically separated for many South Africans. Yet the common assumption that only fathers who live with their children provide support for them, substantially underestimates fathers' financial contributions to their children. In this article we examine the association between children's connections to their fathers and paternal support. Using d…
Who Helps Single Mothers in Nairobi? The Role of Kin Support
Single mothers often turn to their extended kin for financial assistance and to help with child care. Such support may be especially important in areas of high poverty and poor environmental conditions. Using novel kinship data, this article assesses the extent of support given by more than 3,000 relatives to 462 single mothers living in a slum area of Nairobi, Kenya. Contrary to stereotypes about families in sub-Saharan Africa, the active kin ne…
Child Mobility, Maternal Status, and Household Composition in Rural South Africa
This article examines the influence of maternal status, socioeconomic status of the household, and household composition on the mobility of children aged 0–14 in Mpumalanga Province, South Africa, from 1999 to 2008. Using data from the Agincourt Health and Demographic Surveillance System, we found that children whose mothers were temporary migrants, living elsewhere, or dead had higher odds of moving than children whose mothers were coresident. O…
Children's residence patterns and educational attainment in rural South Africa, 1997
Using data collected by the Agincourt Health and Population Programme in a rural sub-district of South Africa's Northern Province, this paper describes the residential arrangements of a population in rural South Africa, and analyses the impact of these arrangements on children's educational attainment. Children with co-resident parents generally have higher levels of schooling than those who have one or no co-resident parents. However, having a f…
Moving beyond the household
Across settings, it has been shown that the co-residential household is an insufficient measure of family structure and support. However, it continues to be the primary means of population data collection. To address this problem, we developed a new instrument, the Kinship Support Tree (KST), to collect kinship structure and support data on co-residential and non-residential kin and tested it on a sample of 462 single mothers and their children i…
Bridges to Nowhere
Interest in migrant social networks and social capital has grown substantially over the past several decades. The relationship between "host" and "migrant" communities remains central to these scholarly debates. Recently urbanized cities in Africa, which include large numbers of "native-born" or internal migrants, challenge basic presumptions about host/migrant distinctions informing many of these discussions. Using comparable survey data from Jo…
Female-headed households contending with Aids-related hardship in rural South Africa
Mainstream research and the popular media often equate female-headship with household vulnerability, crisis, and disorganization. Epidemic levels of HIV/AIDS in some parts of sub-Saharan Africa compound this portrait of hopelessness. In South Africa, the impact of HIV/AIDS on households depends on race, class, and place. As female-headed households increase in number, we need to better understand how female-heads in poor rural areas contend with …
Best of Friends and Worst of Enemies
Much of the scholarship on polygyny portrays it as harmful to women, noting in particular that it pits co-wives against each other. Some feminists have used this characterization to associate polygyny with the subjugation of women. However, other work has illustrated the collaborative nature of polygynous relationships. Despite efforts to generalize about polygyny (as either competitive or collaborative), it has become increasingly clear that co-…
Modernizing Marriage
Kinship in Practice
The examination of co-residential household arrangements has been a mainstay in demographic analysis, based on the assumption that those with whom one lives are the most important influences in one's life. In contrast, we know far less about the spaces not shared but none the less crucially important in the lives of children. In this analysis, we bring together detailed ethnographic data on kin connectivity with geographical information system (G…
Distance or location? How the geographic distribution of kin networks shapes support given to single mothers in urban Kenya
With increasing urbanisation and mobility underway across sub-Saharan Africa, kin groups are becoming spatially dispersed. The extent of support provided by kin to one another is likely to vary with this geospatial positioning. Because most data collection is restricted to the co-residential household, we have little knowledge of the geospatial dimensions of kin groups of which a large part is beyond household boundaries, and even less insight in…
One hand does not bring up a child
Childrearing in sub-Saharan Africa is often viewed as collaborative, where children benefit from support from kin. For single mothers living in informal settlements, kin networks may be highly dispersed and offer little day-to-day childrearing support, but
Economic Inequality and Divergence in Family Formation in Sub-Saharan Africa
Economic inequality has been rising in many sub-Saharan African countries alongside rapid changes to union and family formation. In high-income countries marked by rising inequality, union and family formation practices have diverged across socioeconomic statuses, with intergenerational social and health consequences for the disadvantaged. In this study, we address whether there is also evidence of demographic divergence in low-income settings. S…
Father Contact Following Union Dissolution for Low-Income Children in Urban South Africa
Black fathers in South Africa face enormous challenges remaining involved in their children's lives as a result of very high levels of unemployment and union instability. We use data from the Birth to Twenty (Bt20) cohort study to describe trajectories of father contact in the lives of children who have experienced a parental union dissolution and examine the influence of life stage of child at time of union dissolution and mother's entry into ne…
Kin support and child health
Kin in Daily Routines
A critical component of child rearing is time use. There has been a wealth of studies on time use in child rearing focusing on biological parents in the US and western contexts but there is a notable absence of any scholarship on time use that has incorporated extended kin in the African context. This paper examines time use with children in rural South Africa using observational data and incorporates a range of kin and non-kin. The analysis focu…
Household structure vs. composition
Despite the wealth of literature on household structure and children's educational outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa, the conceptual basis of these effects has not been well articulated. We have shown the value of unpacking household structure to better understand how gender norms and gendered resource allocations impact education
Maternal migration and child health
Securing Fatherhood Through Kin Work
In this article, the authors examine how low-income Black men in South Africa and the United States work with their kin to secure fathering and ensure the well-being of children. They use ethnographic and life history data on men who fathered children from 1992 to 2005 to demonstrate how fathers' roles as kin workers enable them to meet culturally defined criteria for responsible fatherhood in two contexts marked by legacies of racism, increasing…
Effect of HIV/Aids-related mortality on household dependency ratios in rural South Africa, 2000-2005
UNLABELLED: With data from a surveillance system that uses verbal autopsies to identify cause of death in rural South Africa, we investigated whether mortality from HIV/AIDS differs from other causes of death in its effect on household dependency ratio, and to what extent the effect is mediated by the baseline dependency ratio. FINDINGS: (i) the impact of death from HIV/AIDS on the dependency ratio in 2005 is marginally positive compared with oth…
Internal migration and child health in Malawi
Living Arrangements, Disability and Gender of Older Adults Among Rural South Africa
This study underscores the need to examine living arrangements and disability through a gendered lens, with particular attention to heterogeneity among multigenerational living arrangements. Some living arrangements may take a greater toll on older persons than others. Important policy implications for South Africa and other LMICs emerge among vibrant debates about the role of social welfare programs in improving the health of older individuals
Family Complexity in Rural South Africa
It is well established that Black African children in South Africa live in complex living arrangements. Far less, however, is known about the dynamism in children's living arrangements over the life course or the extent to which kin group characteristics influence the intensity of change in these arrangements. In this article, we draw on data collected on 337 children aged 0-21 embedded in 13 kin groups in Mpumalanga, South Africa to (a) describe…
The compound as a locus of fertility management
To explain the persistence of high fertility and low contraceptive prevalence in rural sub-Saharan Africa, demography has relied heavily on a framework that emphasizes institutional barriers to individual behavioural change. Such an approach assumes that in traditional societies, institutions such as polygyny exert a uniform effect on fertility for all women and hence, actors have little agency in fertility decision-making. One consequence of thi…
Female Cooperation and Conflict in Rural Mali
Despite notable demographic contributions to the study of social organization and infant and child survival in sub-Saharan Africa, there is a paucity in research on the relationship between household discord and child survival. Using qualitative and survey data from two ethnic groups in the West African country of Mali, this study examines the possible effects of female cooperation and conflict on infant and child survival. Results suggest that c…
A Colonial Lexicon of Birth Ritual, Medicalization, and Mobility in the Congo
Colonial Lexicon of Birth Ritual, Medicalization, and Mobility in the Congo. Nancy Rose Hunt. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999. vii. 475 pp., photographs, illustrations, notes, glossary, bibliography, index
Women’s Social Power, Child Nutrition and Poverty in Mali
While the macro-level association between poverty and child malnutrition is well-established, the concept of ‘poverty’ and its operationalization in terms of measures of socioeconomic status shed little or no light on the mechanisms through which malnutrition is created and/or prevented. This paper investigates a woman’s social power, one such mechanism that may mediate the impact of poverty on childhood nutrition. This micro-level factor is exam…
Women's social networks and child survival in Mali
Children's residence patterns and educational attainment in rural South Africa, 1997
Using data collected by the Agincourt Health and Population Programme in a rural sub-district of South Africa's Northern Province, this paper describes the residential arrangements of a population in rural South Africa, and analyses the impact of these arrangements on children's educational attainment. Children with co-resident parents generally have higher levels of schooling than those who have one or no co-resident parents. However, having a f…
Best of Friends and Worst of Enemies
Much of the scholarship on polygyny portrays it as harmful to women, noting in particular that it pits co-wives against each other. Some feminists have used this characterization to associate polygyny with the subjugation of women. However, other work has illustrated the collaborative nature of polygynous relationships. Despite efforts to generalize about polygyny (as either competitive or collaborative), it has become increasingly clear that co-…
Fosterage patterns in the age of Aids
Measuring social networks cross-culturally
The implications of long term community involvement for the production and circulation of population knowledge
Demographic surveillance systems (DSS) depend on community acceptance and involvement to produce high quality longitudinal data. Ensuring community support also exposes power relations usually concealed in the research process. We discuss the Agincourt Health and Demographic Surveillance System in South Africa to argue that: 1) long-term presence and community involvement contribute to high response rates and data quality, 2) to maintain communit…
A systematic review on the meaning of the concept ‘Aids Orphan’
Absent Breadwinners
The sites for earning a living and for maintaining a family, of production and reproduction, remain geographically separated for many South Africans. Yet the common assumption that only fathers who live with their children provide support for them, substantially underestimates fathers' financial contributions to their children. In this article we examine the association between children's connections to their fathers and paternal support. Using d…
Strengthening families to support children affected by HIV and Aids
This paper provides an overview of the arguments for the central role of families, defined very broadly, and we emphasise the importance of efforts to strengthen families to support children affected by HIV and AIDS. We draw on work conducted in the Joint Learning Initiative on Children and AIDS's Learning Group 1: Strengthening Families, as well as published data and empirical literature to provide the rationale for family strengthening. We clos…
Effect of HIV/Aids-related mortality on household dependency ratios in rural South Africa, 2000-2005
UNLABELLED: With data from a surveillance system that uses verbal autopsies to identify cause of death in rural South Africa, we investigated whether mortality from HIV/AIDS differs from other causes of death in its effect on household dependency ratio, and to what extent the effect is mediated by the baseline dependency ratio. FINDINGS: (i) the impact of death from HIV/AIDS on the dependency ratio in 2005 is marginally positive compared with oth…
Female-headed households contending with Aids-related hardship in rural South Africa
Mainstream research and the popular media often equate female-headship with household vulnerability, crisis, and disorganization. Epidemic levels of HIV/AIDS in some parts of sub-Saharan Africa compound this portrait of hopelessness. In South Africa, the impact of HIV/AIDS on households depends on race, class, and place. As female-headed households increase in number, we need to better understand how female-heads in poor rural areas contend with …
Bridges to Nowhere
Interest in migrant social networks and social capital has grown substantially over the past several decades. The relationship between "host" and "migrant" communities remains central to these scholarly debates. Recently urbanized cities in Africa, which include large numbers of "native-born" or internal migrants, challenge basic presumptions about host/migrant distinctions informing many of these discussions. Using comparable survey data from Jo…
Child Mobility, Maternal Status, and Household Composition in Rural South Africa
This article examines the influence of maternal status, socioeconomic status of the household, and household composition on the mobility of children aged 0–14 in Mpumalanga Province, South Africa, from 1999 to 2008. Using data from the Agincourt Health and Demographic Surveillance System, we found that children whose mothers were temporary migrants, living elsewhere, or dead had higher odds of moving than children whose mothers were coresident. O…
Young People's Lives and Sexual Relationships in Rural Africa
Securing Fatherhood Through Kin Work
In this article, the authors examine how low-income Black men in South Africa and the United States work with their kin to secure fathering and ensure the well-being of children. They use ethnographic and life history data on men who fathered children from 1992 to 2005 to demonstrate how fathers' roles as kin workers enable them to meet culturally defined criteria for responsible fatherhood in two contexts marked by legacies of racism, increasing…
Management of non-marital fertility in two South African communities
In this analysis, we draw on qualitative data to examine the management of non-marital fertility among young women in two rural, Black communities situated in different provinces of South Africa: KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga. While the two communities share a history of economic and social disadvantage and limited access to the labour market, there are, nonetheless, distinctive features that are evident in the management of non-marital fertility.…
Who Would You Like To Be Like? Family, Village, and National Role Models Among Black Youth in Rural South Africa
In this paper, we examine how Black youth in rural South Africa construct role models and connect them to their own life aspirations. We pay particular attention to individual and group identity development in shaping these perceptions. Based on analysis of qualitative data from 99 Black male and female youth aged 14-22, we find that 1) the choice of role models reflects a balancing strategy to reconcile individual and group identity development;…
Kin in Daily Routines
A critical component of child rearing is time use. There has been a wealth of studies on time use in child rearing focusing on biological parents in the US and western contexts but there is a notable absence of any scholarship on time use that has incorporated extended kin in the African context. This paper examines time use with children in rural South Africa using observational data and incorporates a range of kin and non-kin. The analysis focu…
Evidence for localised HIV related micro–epidemics associated with the decentralised provision of antiretroviral treatment in rural South Africa
BACKGROUND: In this study we analysed the spatial and temporal changes in patterns of mortality over a period when antiretroviral therapy (ART) was rolled out in a rural region of north-eastern South Africa. Previous studies have identified localised concentrated HIV related sub-epidemics and recommended that micro-level analyses be carried out in order to direct focused interventions. METHODS: Data from an ongoing health and socio-demographic su…
Determinants of the risk of dying of HIV/Aids in a rural South African community over the period of the decentralised roll-out of antiretroviral therapy
BACKGROUND: Antiretroviral treatment (ART) has significantly reduced HIV mortality in South Africa. The benefits have not been experienced by all groups. Here we investigate the factors associated with these inequities. DESIGN: This study was located in a rural South African setting and used data collected from 2007 to 2010, the period when decentralised ART became available. Approximately one-third of the population were of Mozambican origin. Th…
Orphan/vulnerable child caregiving moderates the association between women's autonomy and their BMI in three African countries
Enhancement of women's autonomy is a key factor for improving women's health and nutrition. With nearly 12 million orphan and vulnerable children (OVC) in Africa due to HIV/AIDS, the study of OVC primary caregivers' nutrition is fundamental. We investigated the association between married women's autonomy and their nutritional status; explored whether this relationship was modified by OVC primary caregiving; and analyzed whether decision-making a…
Sociology (47 obras) · Psychology (32 obras) · Economics (30 obras) · Demography (29 obras) · Geography (27 obras) · Population (25 obras) · Economic growth (22 obras) · Poverty, Education, and Child Welfare (22 obras) · Intergenerational Family Dynamics and Caregiving (20 obras) · Medicine (19 obras)