Social Protection, Intergenerational Relationships and Conflict in South Africa

Abstract

It has long been acknowledged that social protection contributes to patterns of stratification but there is little attention paid to the ways in which it creates conflict and inequalities in intergenerational relationships at the micro level. Where social protection has uneven generational coverage, relationships between generations are reshaped. South Africa is an important site for the study of such effects. It has a long history of social protection as well as multi-generational kinship practices. The provision of grants to some but not all family members recasts patterns of dependency and conflict within families. Expanding state intervention through the welfare state has led to refamilialisation rather than defamilialisation, with effects varying by class, race, gender and generation.