Livelihood strategies of the aged people in Mubaira Community, Zimbabwe
- Authors: Muruviwa, Addmore Tapfuma
- Date: 2011
- Subjects: Older people -- Zimbabwe , Older people -- Zimbabwe -- Social conditions , Older people -- Zimbabwe -- Economic conditions , Rural development -- Zimbabwe , Sustainable development -- Zimbabwe , Community development -- Zimbabwe
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , M Soc Sc (Sociology)
- Identifier: vital:11953 , http://hdl.handle.net/10353/334 , Older people -- Zimbabwe , Older people -- Zimbabwe -- Social conditions , Older people -- Zimbabwe -- Economic conditions , Rural development -- Zimbabwe , Sustainable development -- Zimbabwe , Community development -- Zimbabwe
- Description: In today‘s changing demographic, economic, political and environmental context the livelihood strategies developed by the rapidly growing older population deserve particular attention. Lack of support by the state coupled with economic crises and decreasing family availability has meant that older people are increasingly expected to find their own means of support into old age, develop their own strategies and rely on their own resources. Heterogeneity in old age means that while some older people are amongst the most vulnerable and socially down and out, others have accumulated resources that enable them to implement diverse and enterprising livelihood strategies to maintain their wellbeing in old age. This study uses an explorative approach in its quest to understand the various livelihood strategies of the elderly. In-depth interviews and life histories have been utilized as data collection instruments. In addition to this inductive and qualitative research approach, the dissertation uses the sustainable livelihoods framework to examine the different kinds of livelihood strategies employed by the elderly in Mubaira to stave off poverty in old age in the absence of social security systems. A comparative analysis with other regional countries reveals that old age pensions have been able to reduce poverty at old age significantly. By engaging in different livelihood activities, in the absence of old age pensions, the elderly in Mubaira community in Zimbabwe have been able to make a living. Agriculture is the dominant activity the aged people engage in as they try to avert food insecurity. Besides agriculture, aged people diversify their livelihoods through self employments that add income value to their households. The impact of cash and non-cash remittances has seen aged people being able to buy basic goods and a few essentials. Although the state has been dysfunctional, civil society has stepped in to address the livelihood challenges faced by the aged population and in v particular to provide an alternative solution to the needs of the elderly people within the sustainable livelihoods framework which remains one of the most important models for the analysis of rural livelihoods. Through the livelihoods approach‘s vulnerability approach the study also analyses the various impacts affecting the attainment of sustainable livelihood outcomes. Through the utilization of the livelihoods framework in addition to the qualitative research methodology as indicated above, the study found that livelihood activities of the aged require a stock of capital assets which include natural, human, physical, social and financial capital. The life histories of the aged in Mubaira revealed that through the years the aged did accumulate various assets that assist them even now. As the life course perspective suggests events in earlier life do have a bearing on later life, access to a range of capital assets helped old aged people in Mubaira to fully engage in livelihood strategies that ensured their survival and escape from poverty.
- Full Text:
Poverty attribution and reaction to income inequality in Nigeria: the case of Badia community in Lagos
- Authors: Ige, Kehinde Davies
- Date: 2011
- Subjects: Income distribution -- Nigeria , Poverty -- Nigeria
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD (Sociology)
- Identifier: vital:11951 , http://hdl.handle.net/10353/329 , Income distribution -- Nigeria , Poverty -- Nigeria
- Description: This study was about the reaction of disadvantaged groups and persons to inequality and deprivation. Set in Badia, a low income community in Lagos, Nigeria, it investigates the main effects of community members’ attributions of causes of poverty in motivating or impeding their reaction to inequality. Relative Deprivation (RD) theory proposed that dissatisfaction with social outcomes depend on subjective feelings rather than objective criteria. However scholars found empirical difficulties in predicting collective action on the basis of RD. Resource Mobilization proponents argued on the contrary that feelings are not salient within the framework of action. The infusion of Social Identity Theory (SIT) into RD research however resolved the paradox of action with SIT’s argument that action was contingent upon the perception of permeability and legitimacy of inter-group structures. However, despite successes of SIT, scholars found that it was unable to predict the type of actions group members will take in response to injustice and the nature of possible actions. Propositions of RD and SIT were therefore suitable for integration into the proposition of Taylor & McKirnan’s (1984) Five Stage Model (FSM) of inter-group relations that reactions to RD feelings were predicated upon the dynamics of the social philosophy guiding stratification. Using an integrated RD, SIT and FSM framework, this study shows how disadvantaged group members’ responses to deprivation proceeded as predicted by the FSM from mutual acceptance to collective action mediated by their perception of causes of poverty. This complements the trend in the literature on reaction to inequality and it's almost ii exclusive focus on instrumental and affective concerns while neglecting the role of consensually shared beliefs in motivating or impeding action and willingness to act in response to injustice. The study hypothesized that the pattern of causal attributions of poverty of respondents will shape their ‘predisposition to act’ and the type of action they would engage in. The main hypothesis of the study therefore was that poverty attribution mediates the relationship between ‘feelings of injustice’ and ‘reaction to inequality’. For instance where respondents attribute poverty to individual or fatalistic factors they will adopt individual action whereas where attributions are structural, responses will be collective, where feelings of injustice were present. A survey was conducted using a five-level Likert scale to decipher respondents’ perceptions of feelings of injustice, their causal attribution of poverty, their levels of willingness to embark on collective action and actions taken in the preceding year. In the first stage of analysis, responses (n = 383) were reduced using Principal Components Analysis (PCA) to determine how questionnaire items contributed to variables under consideration. Subsequently, variables extracted were correlated and regressed. While bivariate correlation was used to test simple relationships between variables, a stepwise hierarchical regression analysis was used to decipher how sub-dimensions of poverty attribution mediate the relationship between respondents’ feelings of injustice and their willingness to embark on collective action entering variables in succession into the regression equation. Furthermore, a 1 x 3 x 5 Multivariate Analysis of Covariance (MANCOVA) was used to test the mediation effects of poverty attribution sub-dimensions on the relationship between injustice feelings and actions. The results showed iii that structural attribution was the preferred explanation for poverty among Badia residents, as this explanation was preferred by a majority of the respondents. It was also shown that while 96.9% of respondents used more than one causal attribution, a majority of structural attributors adopted fatalistic attribution as second choice of explanation for poverty. On the basis of the above, and in line with previous studies (Mann, 1970; Bobo, 1991), it was deduced that the possibility for radical action would be diminished as a result of this ‘dual/split consciousness’. The result further confirmed as hypothesized, that fatalistic attribution had a negative correlation with willingness to embark on collective action as respondents in the fatalistic condition were not willing to embark on collective action. However, respondents in the structural conditions were more willing to engage in collective action. While attributions predicted willingness to embark on collective action, MANCOVA showed that action proceeded in a continuum as predicted by the FSM. For example, while the introduction of fatalistic and individual attribution to the equation hypothesizing the relationship between injustice feelings and action showed that resultant actions were predominantly individual normative, post-hoc inclusion of the structural dimension to the equation showed an addition variance to the equation for collective action. This indicated that structural attributions enhance collective normative action. However, consistent with most studies in the literature, the results did not predict collective non-normative action1. Results indicated low adherence of subject to items eliciting collective action suggesting that past studies which reported high preference of collective action by disadvantaged groups may have been influenced by ‘social desirability effects’, given Topf’s (1995) assertion that what people say they will do is often not what they do but what they perceive as right in the particular situation. 1 The only notable exception is Boen & Vanbeselaere (1998) 2 A full discussion of lay explanations of poverty is reserved for chapter 4 of this thesis. iv The study however proposed on the basis of the salience of structural attributions that poverty attributions may become useful for Social Movement Organizations (SMOs) interested in fostering social change. However, while the study showed that attribution influences willingness to embark on action it does not show how attribution becomes salient in group membership. Thus there is a need for future studies to investigate how attribution affects group identification. Similarly, given the dearth of studies of the attribution of the ‘actual poor’ of poverty, it is necessary for future studies to test the validity of the result from the present study indicating stronger adherence to fatalistic than individualistic attributions of poverty among the disadvantaged. While many past studies of attribution and those of reaction to injustice have been on samples of middle-class adults in developed countries, or artificially created deprived groups, the present study being of the ‘real life’ poor in a Third World setting, provides evidence of ‘real world’ actions and attributions of people experiencing poverty.
- Full Text: