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Effects Of Apartheid On Family Life

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In South Africa, family life and the way one cares for their family is influenced by issues of race, class and gender. Socio-political issues like apartheid have shaped the family life in South Africa over the years. Apartheid was a system of control, put in place by the white minority government to oppress non-whites by treating them like animals and also in the process, breaking up their families.
Apartheid had an effect on family life in South Africa. It regulated many things like families and the hierarchy in South Africa (Bray, Gooskens, Moses, Kahn, Seeking, 2010: 48). The white people became the privileged and they enjoyed and lived lives of luxury because the government favoured them and strongly encouraged white people to live with …show more content…

Even in the recent times, there are still a lot of black children that live with their grandparents while their parents pursue work in the city. The effects of apartheid on family life are still being felt by people today. Some of these children were expected to also maintain the household because their grandparents later on started getting sick. While the white people got to live their nuclear family, most white children know what it feels like to grow up with both parents in the …show more content…

A persons background plays a role when it comes to determining what kind of family life that person will have, also they resources available to their disposal as a child (Cohen, MacCartney, 2004: 183). Things like finances and level of education play a role. Homes led by single parents are at a higher risk of economic disadvantage because single parents, which are mainly women, run a family with the earnings of one individual instead of two which would be the case if that woman was married (Cohen, MacCartney, 2004: 184). A vast number of these households that are led by single mothers, are due to the fact that these women are not highly educated. This causes them to get minimum wage jobs with then contributes to the rising poverty levels because these women cannot look after their family effectively (Cohen, MacCartney, 2004: 184). Many women, mainly black women do not get married due to the lack of men that are eligible for married. Many black men are declared ineligible for marriage because they are unreliable and a vast number of them are getting

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