Politics of pension sharing in urban South Africa

Dados Bibliográficos

ID5779031
AutoresAndreas Sagner (0000-0001-5698-8191, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München), Raymond Z Mtati (South African Heart Association)
Ano1999
Volume19
Fascículo4
Páginas393-416
Data de publicação1999-07-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoAgeing and Society (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0144-686X • E-ISSN: 1469-1779
EditoraCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0144686x99007424
OpenAlexW2170888889
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas38
Referências citadas22

Analysing the practice of pension sharing, this article looks at social and cultural dimensions of ageing in an urban African residential area, Cape Town's Khayelitsha. First, the paper discusses pension sharing as a future-oriented security strategy. Many older Africans in Khayelitsha believe that if they do not share their pensions with their kin, they do not have much chance of being helped in times of need. Pension sharing as an instrumental act is rooted in the perceived underdevelopment of the state social security system on the one hand, and in the very character of African kinship and the fluidity of today's urban domestic units on the other. Partly triggered by poverty and mass unemployment, African pensioners are under severe normative pressure to share their grants within their families. Taking into account African notions of old age and of personhood, and considering the widespread devaluation of older Africans in social constructions, pension sharing provides older Africans with an (easily available) means by which they can earn (self-)respect. Further, state policies indirectly enhance the normative pressure on pensioners to share their old-age pensions. On a symbolic plane the practice may be construed as a political model that conceptualises duty as the inner bond of the social world. In conclusion, it is propounded that the concept of (intergenerational) reciprocity is inadequate to account for pension sharing or practical provision of old-age care

Reciprocity · Aging, Elder Care, and Social Issues · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Urban and Rural Development Challenges