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.
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
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).
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Theoretical orientation in research and its results
- Interviewing in research
- Tests and schedules administered in the field
- Composition of population
- Birth statistics
- Family relationships
- Ethnosociology
- Conception
- Senescence
- Status and treatment of the aged
- cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
- San
- HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
- 2005
- RegionThe area the document pertains to
- Africa
- Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
- Southern Africa
- Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
- essay
- Evaluation
- Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
- Ethnologist
- Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
- 5: Excellent Primary Data
- AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
- John Beierle ; 2003
- Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
- 1987-1988
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- 1980x
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- !Kung San, western Botswana
- NotesAdditional notes
- Patricia Draper and Anne Buchanan
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 150-152)
- LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
- 92000267
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- San (African people)