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Major Trends Affecting Families in Sub-Saharan Africa
Definition and causes of Demographic Aging
Demographic aging is defined as an increase in the proportion of the aged population (60 years
and above) in relation to other segments in the age structure of a population
...

 Decline in fertility and the consequent small family size as a result of social changes
leading to reduced desirability of large families and the success of family planning
programmes
...
The traditional care systems in Africa were
rooted in complex family patterns that included reciprocal care and assistance among the
generations
...
However, due to changing family patterns and size, as well as internal and
international migration the traditional obligations towards parents and the duty to provide them
with love and care are difficult to fulfil currently
...

Increased schooling further results in children spending less time receiving care and guidance from
their parents and hence the feeling of debt towards parents is reduced
...

Mandatory retirement programs that are common throughout Africa relegate the majority of aged
people to the rural areas without adequate economic opportunities
...
To make the
matters worse, the process of aging ultimately leads to loss of informal occupation, resulting in
loss of income in most cases
...
It deprives one of self-sufficiency
and economic independence and the overall standards of living decline
...
With a low fertility regime, the size of
the older and younger cohorts become more similar and pressure is brought to bear upon the middle
aged, a phenomenon that have been termed “The middle generation squeeze”
...
After the age of 65 years,
the probability of disability or impairment in general functioning increases dramatically
...
The women, unfortunately, are often economically dependent

on other people especially in populations where female economic activity is generally low
...
This in
effect means the middle generation is hardly physically available to care for both the children and
the aged
...
Moreover, most of older persons are opposed to living in such institutions and those
already there complain that institutionalization alienates them from their families
...

Experience, has however shown that some older family members are self-sufficient in basic needs
and contribute to family budget
...

Policy Implications concerning Ageing and Older Persons
Comprehensive programs to meet the needs of the aged should proceed from the recognition that
in African societies, the welfare of older persons cannot be detached from that of society as a
whole
...

Poverty
Poverty is a dehumanizing condition which leads to marginalization and alienation of families,
making family members vulnerable to social ills
...

Poverty is categorized into three forms:
 Food poverty refers to situations where expenditure on food is insufficient to meet the Food
and Agricultural Organization/World Health Organization (FAO/WHO) recommended
daily allowance of 2,250 calories per adult per day
...

Hardcore poverty describes situations of individuals and families that cannot afford the
minimum food-energy requirements even if they devoted their entire incomes to food
alone
...


Poor families face starvation, and most lack even basic shelter
...

Unfortunately, the number below the poverty level is still on the rise due to inflation, the shortfall
in agricultural production, and constant climatic issues such as droughts and floods
...
We will focus on these factors in the rest of our discussion
on poverty
...
Among males, more (53%) of rural males are poor, contrasted to (46%) of their urban
counterparts
...
Other cultures promote
early marriage of girls in return for economic gain in the form of bride-wealth (Wilson & Ngige,
2006)
...
In later life, many women find themselves
dependent on their spouses and have little opportunity to fend for themselves and their children
...

Household heads with no education have the highest incidence of poverty in both rural (64%) and
urban (66%) areas
...

Poverty and Marital status
Overall, single persons are poorer than married ones
...
These figures are high compared with those of men which are 48 percent and 42 percent,
respectively
...

Poverty and Household size
In both rural and urban areas, large households have higher rates of poverty than smaller
households
...
In
Kenya, the dependence ratio in families varies depending on location
...
In urban areas, the
dependency ratio is 56 dependents per 100 employed people (Kenya, 2000, 2002)
...
This implies that families with younger
heads are still small and might have fewer expenses, while older heads with larger families have
higher expenditure for basic needs such as food, clothing, shelter, health, and education
...

Among urban dwellers, a peculiar pattern emerges showing an inverse relationship between
poverty and age of household head
...
Poverty gradually decreases to 38 percent as the age of the head
increases
...
As they grow older, they master urban survival strategies, acquire
better paying jobs, and have fewer children (than past generations or rural dwellers) and they are
able to raise them more adequately (Kenya, 2000, 2002g)
...
Poor families
have assets in their own skills, social institutions, in their values and cultures, and in their
knowledge of their own environment
...

In a way, poverty has determined the family structure in the following ways:
 Many poor families are large in size as they consider children as assets and an insurance
against old age, destitution and poverty
...
The prevalence of drinking,
drug abuse and gambling is higher in poor families than those that are well to do
...

 Further, Parents are unable to provide adequate housing, safe environment and responsible
childcare while they work
...
This may lead to the break-up of
family lifestyle commitments and ties to their community
...

 Parental career disappointments can also create anxiety and self doubt in children
...


Modernization and Westernization
These developments create a vacuum when they occur in predominantly traditional societies
...

 The break of traditional family resulting from changes in the physical, social and economic
environments
...

 Other social problems such as housing, sanitation and crime
...

Urbanization
This process tends to:
 Stabilize the nucleation of the family system which has both positive and negative effects
on the family structure (Ref changes in size and structure of the family)
...
This results in an increase in mortality and morbidity
due to diseases originating from lifestyle changes
...

 Emergence of unplanned industrial development that cause massive environmental
degradation and pollution problems
...

Globalization
Is the process in which capital goods and services, technology, information and various cultural
items flow freely beyond national boundaries
...
Globalization and open
economies have created opportunities for migration, in effect facilitating the family to change its
structure:
 Specifically, unskilled men and women are migrating in large numbers in search of
employment
...

 In most of the families with overseas employed women, the husband has become “house
husband” as opposed to “bread winner” of the family
...

 For workers employed abroad with a higher level of education, availability of communication
systems enables them to maintain regular contacts and relationships with family members
...
The result is a breakdown of
family relationships
...


Thus governments are compelled to take remedial measures to uplift the living standards of older
persons
...
In short, outside intervention is often necessary to assist families in their social
functions that include care and socialization of children, care of sick and older family members
and maintaining relationships within the family and outside
...
Following the Group of 8
summit in Canada in 2002, donor nations pledged $6 billion annually by 2006 that would help
Africa achieve 7 per cent annual economic growth and reduce the number of people living in
poverty by half by the year 2015
...
NEPAD envisages that domestic resource mobilization will
come from increased national savings by firms and households, effective tax collection,
rationalizing government expenditure, and reversing capital flight by improving the conditions for
domestic investments
...

Migration
Population movements have increased particularly during the last two to three decades due to
causes such as:
 Ecological deterioration
 Rapid population growth
 Increased poverty
 Civil wars
 Ethnic and religious conflicts
 Economic interdependence
 Increasing globalization
Internal Migration
In much of Africa, internal migration forms a significant component of the livelihood systems of
millions of families
...
Nearly one third (32%) of
sub-Saharan Africans lived in urban areas in 1996, up from 11% in 1950
...
With most of
Africa's urban population reaching close to 50 per cent, migration to cities continues to deepen the
rural-urban ties, in particular strengthening the dependence of rural households on the remittances
of migrants
...
Studies from Swaziland
show that labour migration has had corrosive effects on kinship ties including:
 Women undertaking the rearing of children alone
...

 Large numbers of single women have increased poverty levels
...

 Decline of agricultural production as wives of migrants are entrusted with subsistence
farming activities
...

 Married men working in urban areas abandoning their wives and taking on new ones
...

 Abandoned wives becoming targets of married men in their societies, leading to more
marriage break-ups
...
The females left behind acquire more education than
males, as men migrate to low skilled jobs
...

 Women's superior education was responsible for the rapid marriage break-ups
...

 With the escalation in bride-wealth costs, many men are marrying late, well beyond 30
years of age
...
Women who migrate are mainly:
o The educated
...

o The heads of the escalating number of single-parent families
...
The impact of
migration on divorce and separation is most felt where urban males abandon their wives in rural
settings
...
In most cases, migration encourages males
to have wives in the rural areas and other wives or sexual partners in urban settings
...
Although these unions represent a modern adapted version of polygyny,
they contribute to family break-ups and the upsurge of female-headed households
...

More important, the outcomes of migration movements, notably polygynous unions without
regular cohabitation, have put additional pressures on the social and economic responsibilities of
women
...
Thus overall

economic changes growing from migration have forced women to play an even greater part in
providing for their children's subsistence either through food production or off-farm incomegenerating activities
...

The impact of migration on African families is two-sided, precisely because of the tension between
diminishing opportunities in the agricultural sector coupled with land shortages and the persistence
of social norms of patriarchy
...
New family structures have
therefore emerged to capture the straddling of populations between urban and rural environments
...

International Migration
Globalization has also fostered new forms of migration as Africans seek better economic
opportunities in Europe, the Middle East, and North America
...
The worsening economic
circumstances and political instability have forced the best-educated Africans to leave home and
work abroad
...
Africa's track record on
civil war, violent conflict, strife and political instability has, with a large measure, contributed to
refugee flows
...
About 10 million people
have been the victims of forced migration
...
For example, there are Mauritanian refugees in Mali, and Malian refugees in
Mauritania
...
Like rural-urban migration, international migration is a
double-edged sword to families, furnishing potential economic benefits through remittances, but
also breaking the social bonds of amity that sustain families
...
As governments of industrialized countries have
implemented restrictive immigration policies to regulate the supply of labour from poor countries,
most of the migrants become either illegal or have few opportunities of employment
...

To underscore the enormity of this problem, UNICEF has estimated that cross-border smugglers
in Central and West Africa enslave 200,000 children a year
...
They in turn keep them in subservience
through physical violence, debt bondage, passport confiscation, and threats of violence against
their families
...


Impact of Migration on family
Most unskilled and semi-skilled persons intend to make temporary migration purely to achieve a
better livelihood for their families
...

 Child’s personality development, conduct, performance in studies and attitudes to society and
life is impact on
...

 Clandestine love affairs (migrant and spouse) and instances of abandoning the family have also
been observed
...

 Bigamy and polygamy are also a possibility
...

 The migration of prime working generations in the short run results in the transfer of
dependency burden of the family from the younger to older generations
...

 The decision making role in the family is transferred from traditional male heads to female
members who are earning substantial incomes for the family from foreign employment
...

2) Relatives are sought to help the left spouse attend to the needs of young children
...

4) Grandparents are called to play a significant role as members of the extended family
...


References
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Journal of
Comparative Family Studies, 25(2), 159–16
Becker, R
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: National Institute of Education
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Early childhood programs in other nations: Goals and outcomes
...


Bowen, M
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Family Therapy in Clinical Practice
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Clignet, R
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Many wives, many powers
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and Davies, P
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Children and Marital Conflict
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Easterlin, Richard A
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“Modernization and fertility: A critical Essay”; In Determinants of
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Ferraro, G
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Urban
Anthropology, 2, 214–231
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Hughes, F
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Kagitcibasi, C
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Olds, D
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