Sex, Gender, Becoming - PULP

100 Kammila Naidoo
environments. Whilst differentiating itself from many other periurban
areas because of its history of black land ownership, Winterveld
resembles many of them in both its lack of infrastructure and levels
of poverty. It is estimated that nearly 75% (of all men and women)
living in the area are unemployed and, of those employed, 50% are
involved in informal sector activities. 31 In the survey which I
conducted around my fieldwork site, over 50% of all women were not
earning any money and 86% suggested that they needed support from
‘others’ for economic survival.
What can be said about changing fertility within this site? The microsurvey
revealed that while the number of children born to women
aged 15 - 50 years ranged from none to thirteen, the mean number of
children born (to individual women) was between two to three. Most
older women (over 45 years) tended, in both the survey and life
history interviews, to talk in terms of five children being the ‘ideal’,
but younger women (between 15 and 44 years) rarely expressed
desires to bear more than two children. In line with this, a very large
proportion of women (71%) were using contraception, in most cases to
prevent rather than space pregnancies. With respect to women under
25 years, 76% of those with primary school education and 85% with
high school education were using contraception. This latter
percentage includes women who have completed (some years of) high
school as well as those currently in high school (when the risk of
falling pregnant is particularly high). Nonetheless, irrespective of
educational level, contraceptive use can be argued to be unusually
widespread for an area experiencing poverty.
Throughout the period of my fieldwork numerous explanations were
offered for this declining commitment to bearing children. A central
explanation commonly offered was that marriage or stable unions, as
institutions within which children are born, were becoming
infrequent. In the group sessions some of the younger women (many
of whom had already had babies) also maintained that they preferred
not to marry, and that they would rather live alone with their
children. Others expressed ideal-types of men 32 in marriage — eg he
must ‘not have another wife’, he must ‘be educated’ and he must be
‘democratic’. Early experience of abuse at the hands of men was also
a factor which, women suggested, made them reluctant to enter into
a union and bear children, especially if there were possibilities of
mistreatment or if the lasting potential of the union was doubtful.
Unemployment and poor economic means were commonly cited as the
main reason why women were reluctant to bear additional children.
In addition, the ‘costs’ of bringing up children and low expectations
31
Simone (n 28 above).
32 Group session, ‘Youth Group’, 22 June 1999.