Who has a duty to support? Care practices and legal responsibilities in South Africa

Abstract

It is not always clear, through policies or law, where and when family responsibility ends. This article outlines the tensions that underlie policy and legal conceptions of obligation and everyday obligations that shape typically gendered patterns of care in families in South Africa. An examination of court cases reveals that the court found practices of intergenerational financial support amongst diffuse kin relations and ruled that the social insurance system (Road Accident Fund) was obliged to continue these following the death of a breadwinner in a road accident. The Road Accident Fund contested this responsibility by disputing the legal obligation of the deceased to support the kin member. The cases highlight the lack of coherence in policy and law concerning the agreed social norms about the family. On the one hand, the RAF’s approach reproduces the gendered assumption of care, i.e. the role of the state is reduced, and the onus is placed on working class black South African women to take care of themselves and their families. On the other hand, the judiciary’s focus on social practices of care rather than rights is applauded for being transformative. I argue that the state’s ambiguous approach to recognising committed care work results in a situation where people have to ‘win’ their case in court and consequently leaves the care of family members to the unpaid and paid resources of women.