essay
If you have a child you have a life: demographic and cultural perspectives on fathering in old age in !Kung society
Father-child relations : cultural and biosocial contexts, Barry S. Hewlett • Hawthorne, N.Y. • Published In 1992 • Pages: 131-152
By: Draper, Patricia, Buchanan, Anne.
Abstract
This document focuses on the ties between older parents (particularly fathers) and their adult children among the !Kung San. The authors point out that unlike other ethnic populations in the Third World the !Kung San have a large proportion of their population over the age of sixty, but '…this does not necessarily mean that old people are directly connected to multigenerational linkages by having living adult children. Over 12% of the elderly men have never had children and due to high levels of child and adult mortality. Many men (almost 31%) become childless by the age of 60 or more years, having outlived their own children. The future prospects of !Kung men for creating and solidifying family ties through marriage and child bearing are not good. In recent decades, partly due to economic changes among the !Kung themselves, but also due to increased daily contact with members of other ethnic groups, increased numbers of !Kung children have been born who are fathered by men of socially and economically superior ethnic groups. Thus, !Kung men are losing out in the opportunity to marry, to father children with women of their own ethnic group, and to benefit from the support of their grown children when they reach old age' (p. 148).
- HRAF PubDate
- 2005
- Region
- Africa
- Sub Region
- Southern Africa
- Document Type
- essay
- Evaluation
- Creator Type
- Ethnologist
- Document Rating
- 5: Excellent Primary Data
- Analyst
- John Beierle ; 2003
- Field Date
- 1987-1988
- Coverage Date
- 1980x
- Coverage Place
- !Kung San, western Botswana
- Notes
- Patricia Draper and Anne Buchanan
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 150-152)
- LCCN
- 92000267
- LCSH
- San (African people)