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AbstractObjectiveIn this article, I propose a new approach to study the opportunities and challenges for low‐income families through a focus on two key dimensions of family life: time and space. I show how the interaction of these two dimensions produces a range of scenarios for different types of social support to emerge.BackgroundThe space–time continuum (STC) is a theoretical framework in physics that removes the distinction between time and space and, instead, treats them as part of a seamless continuum. Similar to its adaptation in psychology, I use it to develop a model of family dynamics to better understand the correlates of kinship support.MethodDrawing on data drawn from a longitudinal project in Nairobi, Kenya, the spatial dimension is operationalized as the proportion of kin who live in close proximity and the temporal pertains to the duration of time in which family members maintain particular arrangements. Multinomial logit regression models are used to analyze the relationship between STC exposure and the odds of having each type of support composition.ResultsThe receipt of specific types of support from kin does vary across the STC quadrants though not entirely consistent with expectations. Moreover, the role of non‐kin was found to be surprisingly low across all waves of data collection, underscoring the continued importance of kin‐based relationships.ConclusionThe space–time continuum approach offers a way to connect macro level factors such as labor market constraints to micro level adaptation, agency, change and continuity in family structure and function. In doing so, I also make a case for the critical role that research in the African context can play in the development of theory and methodological innovation in family sociology.

Despite notable demographic contributions to the study of social organization and infant and child survival in sub-Saharan Africa, there is a paucity in research on the relationship between household discord and child survival. Using qualitative and survey data from two ethnic groups in the West African country of Mali, this study examines the possible effects of female cooperation and conflict on infant and child survival. Results suggest that cultural norms that stress the importance of cooperation do not necessarily translate into collective childcare strategies nor increase survival chances of infants and children. Conversely, household living arrangements marked by conflict do not negatively impact child welfare. Through an innovative methodology, this study underscores the need for a more sophisticated use of anthropological theory and methods in understanding the role of culture in demographic processes.

It is well established that Black African children in South Africa live in complex living arrangements. Far less, however, is known about the dynamism in children's living arrangements over the life course or the extent to which kin group characteristics influence the intensity of change in these arrangements. In this article, we draw on data collected on 337 children aged 0-21 embedded in 13 kin groups in Mpumalanga, South Africa to (a) describe the types of living arrangements that children are in at the time of birth and in 2002; (b) examine the extent of change and stability in living arrangements over two points in time; (c) describe the variation in the intensity of change in living arrangements over the life course; and (d) analyze the extent to which kin group characteristics help explain this variation. Our analysis shows that most children are in the same living arrangement at birth and in 2002 but that those born into a nuclear arrangement are most likely to change. Moreover, we also found considerable variation in the number of changes in living arrangements that children experience over the life course. The proportion of dependents in the kin group and the living arrangement at the time of birth explained some of this variation controlling for age and parental attributes.

A critical component of child rearing is time use. There has been a wealth of studies on time use in child rearing focusing on biological parents in the US and western contexts but there is a notable absence of any scholarship on time use that has incorporated extended kin in the African context. This paper examines time use with children in rural South Africa using observational data and incorporates a range of kin and non-kin. The analysis focuses on 24 children under the age of 6 and all the people who interact with them over the course of a week. Through an examination of the composition of care networks, the quantity and quality of time investment, and the relationship between care networks and child outcomes, the findings support a kin-based, socially distributed model of child rearing but also challenge assumptions about the extent of kin involvement and impact on child outcomes.

The Joint Learning Initiative on Children and AIDS recently recommended that programmes for children affected by HIV and AIDS in sub‐Saharan Africa direct more support to families. Interest has grown in including men in such family‐orientated interventions by researchers, policy makers, and community and non‐governmental organizations. However, there is a lack of good quality data on men's involvement with children in the diverse settings in sub‐Saharan Africa. In addition, limited research has examined their role in providing emotional, material support and protection for HIV‐ and AIDS‐affected children and families.In this paper, we describe the availability of data about men and families, in particular fathers, in ongoing sub‐Saharan African surveys and longitudinal population cohorts. We discuss the conceptual and measurement issues associated with data collection on men's involvement in these types of studies. We consider the opportunities for improving the collection of data about men and families in household surveys and population cohorts in order to inform the design and evaluation of family‐centred interventions for children affected by HIV and AIDS.

Efforts are underway to globalize sociology in the United States through study abroad experiences. At the same time, there is a push to extend the reach of such programs to students of color. We use student journal entries and fieldnotes from trips to South Africa to analyze how students of color grapple with a disruption of identity in a Black majority setting. Findings reveal that students were challenged by new axes of identity, namely, language and place, and were confronted with their own relative privilege. Sociology can play a critical role in helping students maximize benefit from such experiences if undergraduate curricula incorporate additional axes of intersectionality and include more scholarship from Africa and the Diaspora. Moreover, study abroad programs need to devote significant time to structured debriefings in all pedagogical activities. This would provide faculty and students a space to productively manage and even embrace the disruption of identity.

Interest in migrant social networks and social capital has grown substantially over the past several decades. The relationship between "host" and "migrant" communities remains central to these scholarly debates. Recently urbanized cities in Africa, which include large numbers of "native‐born" or internal migrants, challenge basic presumptions about host/migrant distinctions informing many of these discussions. Using comparable survey data from Johannesburg, Maputo, and Nairobi, we examine 1) the nature of social connectedness in terms of residence and nativity characteristics; and 2) the relationship between residence and nativity characteristics and three measures of trust within and across communities. Our findings suggest that the host/migrant distinction may not be particularly revealing in African cities where domestic mobility, social fragmentation and the absence of bridging institutions result in relatively low levels of trust both within and across communities. These findings underscore the need for new concepts to study "communities of strangers" and how people strategize their social mobility in urban contexts.

The payment of bridewealth or lobola is a longstanding cultural practice that has persisted in South Africa despite significant societal shifts over the past two decades. Lobola has always been a complex and contested practice that both reinforces gender inequalities and, at the same time, provides status to women and legitimacy to marriages. In this paper, we describe rural South African women's perceptions of lobola, their experiences related to marriage and lobola, and how they reconfigure lobola to fit within modern life course aspirations and trajectories. We draw on interviews with 43 women aged 18–55 to examine desires related to lobola and the meanings of lobola given current social, economic, and health (HIV) conditions in rural areas. Our findings indicate that lobola offers women a complex set of benefits and liabilities. Although women value the support, social status, and respectability lobola offers, they also lament how lobola curtails their freedom to pursue education and limits their autonomy from husbands as well as in-laws. Women also view lobola as offering a sense of security amidst the uncertainty of the local political economy and the HIV/AIDS epidemic. We conclude that the way women incorporate lobola into their desires and plans reflects tension between the expectations and aspirations of "modern" women in a post-apartheid context in which rights feature prominently but economic security is not guaranteed, and cultural scripts reinforce longstanding gender norms but also ensure social support.

While the macro-level association between poverty and child malnutrition is well-established, the concept of 'poverty' and its operationalization in terms of measures of socioeconomic status shed little or no light on the mechanisms through which malnutrition is created and/or prevented. This paper investigates a woman's social power, one such mechanism that may mediate the impact of poverty on childhood nutrition. This micro-level factor is examined using survey data on 402 children 5 years of age and younger and their 261 Fulbe mothers in rural Mali. A conceptual model of social power is developed and used to test the hypothesis that a mother's social power can predict her child's nutritional status.

AbstractDespite repeated calls for improved measures of marriage as a process in sub‐Saharan Africa, large‐scale surveys continue to rely on static marital status. As a result, there is an incomplete understanding of the effects of marriage on outcomes of interest. We use qualitative and survey data from a longitudinal study of 1,203 young mothers residing in informal settlements of Nairobi, Kenya, to (1) describe the development of an innovative measure of union formalization (UF) defined as the steps through which a union attains social legitimacy; (2) compare UF with a conventional current marital status measure; (3) examine the distribution of UF steps across union history; and (4) examine the sequence and timing of pregnancy and childbearing within the UF process. We find UF steps indicative of both increasing individualization of marriage and the ongoing importance of kin involvement hold meaning. We demonstrate extensive heterogeneity in the sequence and extent of UF steps completed and interrogate the classification of premarital childbearing using sequence analysis. We argue that measuring UF is feasible and necessary for the next generation of family demography in Africa; UF measures facilitate understanding the linkages among family dynamics, health, and social stratification within the context of ongoing socioeconomic change.