An unbalancing act: gender and parental division in childcare in South Africa

Abstract

The South African Children’s Act, 2005 defines ‘care’ to include safeguarding all aspects of a child’s wellbeing. Despite this obligation falling equally on both parents, studies have shown that mothers in South Africa continue to take greater responsibility for childcare than fathers. Using the most recently available nationally representative quantitative data on physical and financial childcare, collected for the National Income Dynamics Study, this article presents a detailed overview of the involvement in childcare of men compared with women, and fathers compared with mothers. The article includes examining the gender and parental division in assistant childcare, investigating the role played by absent parents in regular physical and financial care, and analysing the gender division in household income of households in which children live.