Families’ Efforts to Secure the Future of Their Children in the Context of Multiple Stresses, Including AIDS

Introduction: Family Planning Amidst Multiple Stressors Many countries in southern Africa are home to a large number of poor rural people, dependent on rainfed agriculture, barely subsisting even in years without shocks, and highly vulnerable to the vagaries of the weather, the economy, and government policy. Within this context of multiple livelihood stressors, including the effects of the AIDS epidemic, families attempt to plan and act to secure their own livelihoods and the future for their children. The context of multiple stressors and decreasing resilience has left many communities more vulnerable to external shocks than in the past. The increase in vulnerable households means that any crisis, whether it is due to climatic shocks, civil disturbance, or economic mismanagement, becomes increasingly difficult to absorb. Gaining an understanding of how parents plan and act to ensure the welfare of their children is a complex task. The interaction of various social, economic, and political factors necessitate the adoption of a range of interdisciplinary methods. This brief is based on a report commissioned by the Joint Learning Initiative on Children and HIV/AIDS (www.jlica.org) in early 2007. The approach was to review published and unpublished literature largely from southern Africa to identify the major issues emerging around family decision-making, and then to utilise this to analyse recent case study material documenting how families are coping with stress across sites in the region. Continual interaction with JLICA Joint Learning Group I (Strengthening Families) helped refine the analysis and arguments.