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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Missing Men? The Debate over Rural Poverty and Women-Headed Households in Southern Africa |
Author: | O'Laughlin, Bridget |
Year: | 1998 |
Periodical: | The Journal of Peasant Studies |
Volume: | 25 |
Issue: | 2 |
Period: | January |
Pages: | 1-48 |
Language: | English |
Geographic terms: | Southern Africa Botswana |
Subjects: | rural poverty female-headed households Women's Issues Economics and Trade Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Labor and Employment economics Cultural Roles migration Family Life Sex Roles |
External link: | https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03066159808438665 |
Abstract: | Migrant labour in southern Africa has been historically associated with rural poverty and a high incidence of women-headed households. Poverty alleviation approaches to social policy ask whether in this context rural women-headed households are poorer than those headed by men. Ample research from the region shows that the answer is no, not always, a fact once more confirmed here in an analysis of the Botswana case. This case suggests, however, that the wrong question is being asked. The incidence of both women-headed households and rural poverty has increased with the polarization of agrarian production and the exclusionary restructuring of the migrant labour system. The question is not whom social welfare programmes should target but what should be done when capital no longer needs the labour that it has pulled from rural households over so many generations. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. |