Elderly, Poor and Resilient: Survival Strategies of Elderly Women in Female-Headed Households: An Intersectionality Perspective

Abstract

The intersectionality perspective reveals that gender relations are intertwined in complex ways with other forms of social inequality. Through this perspective, researchers have come to understand that an individual’s social location as reflected in intersecting identities must be at the forefront in any investigation of gender, in particular, must be understood in the context of power relations embedded within social identities. In this paper, the focus is on the intersection of age, gender and livelihoods in the familial lives of elderly women heading households in Ngangelizwe, Mthatha in South Africa. This study uncovers how the experiences of 15 elderly women who are heads of households are shaped by their current socio-economic conditions as well as reveals ways in which they exercise agency and thereby actively engaging with their socio-economic realities rather than experiencing these as defining features in their lives and livelihoods. As noted in the intersectionality perspective, individuals are not passive recipients of an identity position; instead, they practice each aspect of identity as informed by other identities.