On 29 June 2017, Professor Marlize Rabe from the Department of Sociology was inaugurated to the full ranks of professorship in the College of Human Sciences. Her lecture focused on care dynamics within families and the implications for family policy.

Professor Rabe’s lecture was premised on the fact that all people are in need of care at some point in their life. She explored the logic of the care diamond to focus on specific South African policy initiatives related to care and families.

She said although certain care policies are directed towards individuals regardless of family structures, specific family policy directions in South Africa are still stuck in outdated idealised family forms. “Furthermore, the gender dynamics that are prominent in all care relationships are largely ignored in family and related policies on care. Even more disastrous is that the intersections between gender, class and race have been lost in the policy discourses.”

She provided a detailed analysis and exploration of family policy in different parts of the world which comprised of welfare states in the north, developmental states in the east and other African states. The South African scenario she indicated that care is undervalued in the country. She stated that the burden of care as an act should not be underestimated, and that care as a positive moral value across racial lines should not be ignored.

Care was a focal point in Professor Rabe’s lecture relating to family, the state, the market and the community in South Africa. She said that gender differences in caretaking can be overcome if we encourage more flexible gender constructions. However, she warned that as much as greater gender equality is an important ideal to strive for, it will not translate into general greater equality due to the increasing economic inequality.

If we look at the demographic dividend in South Africa, Professor Rabe believes that there are large numbers of potential caregivers. She said that family as a care institution could thus potentially be relied upon, especially in certain communities. In others, individual members will have to increasingly rely on paid care services since there are not many (or any) available family members to care for them.

She added that these demographic realities have the potential to perpetuate current gender, racial and class inequalities. “Yet, moral values, such as Ubuntu, the feminist ethics of care and the Charter of Compassion may promote positive outcomes especially if volunteer work, NPOs and communities are supported and given more recognition by the state.”

Click here to read the lecture.

* Compiled by Katlego Pilane (CHS communications and marketing)

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