Features of home and neighbourhood and the liveability of older South Africans

While older people live in developing countries, little is known about the relative importance of features of their communities in influencing their liveability. We examinecomponents of home and neighbourhood among older South Africans. Linear regression analyses revealed that features of home (basic amenities, household composition, financial status and safety) and neighbourhood (ability to shop for groceries, participate in organizations and feel safe from crime) are significantly associated with life satisfaction. Approaches to liveability that are person-centred and also set within contexts beyond home and neighbourhood are needed to addressboundaries between home and neighbourhood; incorporate personal resources into liveability models and import broader environmental contexts such as health and social policy

Child Health and Relatives’ Employment in South Africa: The Gendered Effect Beyond Parents

This chapter assesses how children’s serious illness or disability affects the labour market participation of all adults living in a household. The chapter goes beyond the usual father–mother analyses and accounts for the context of developing countries characterised by an extended family structure. It uses the National Income Dynamics Study panel data and utilises fixed-effects logistic regressions and linear regressions for analysis. The results show that a child’s illness or disability significantly increases the employment odds of fathers while reducing those of mothers. These effects are even stronger among married parents. Non-parent males are more likely to work, while no significant effect is found on non-parent females. Child illness is associated, although not significantly, with the wider difference in the proportion of males and females working at the household level. This shows that there is an urgent need for policymakers to be concerned about families with ill or disabled children and to reduce the employment gender gap and make progress towards the fifth Sustainable Development Goal

Religião e uso de drogas por adolescentes Religion and drug use by adolescents

INTRODUÇÃO: Estudos internacionais e nacionais mostram que a religiosidade é um modulador importante no consumo de álcool e drogas entre estudantes adolescentes. OBJETIVOS: verificar se diferentes variáveis da religiosidade influenciam o uso freqüente e/ou pesado de álcool e drogas entre estudantes de 1º e 2º graus. MÉTODOS: Estudo transversal com uma técnica de amostragem do tipo intencional. Foi utilizado um questionário anônimo de autopreenchimento. A amostra foi constituída por 2.287 estudantes de escolas públicas periféricas e centrais e escolas particulares da cidade de Campinas, SP, entrevistados no ano de 1998. As drogas estudadas foram: álcool, tabaco, solventes, medicamentos, maconha, cocaína e ecstasy. As variáveis independentes incluídas na análise de regressão logística foram: filiação religiosa, freqüência de ida ao culto/missa por mês, considerar-se pessoa religiosa e educação religiosa na infância. Para identificar como as variáveis de religiosidade influenciam o uso de álcool e drogas utilizaram-se análises bivariadas e a análise de regressão logística para resposta dicotômica. RESULTADOS: O uso pesado de pelo menos uma droga foi maior entre os estudantes que tiveram educação na infância sem religião. O uso no mês de cocaína e de "medicamentos para dar barato" foi maior nos estudantes que não tinham religião. O uso no mês de ecstasy e de "medicamentos para dar barato" foi maior nos estudantes que não tiveram educação religiosa na infância. CONCLUSÕES: Várias dimensões da religiosidade relacionam-se com o uso de drogas por adolescentes, com possível efeito inibidor. Particularmente interessante foi que uma maior educação religiosa na infância mostrou-se marcadamente importante em tal possível inibição.<br>INTRODUCTION: Many international studies show that religion is an important dimension modulating the use of alcohol and drugs by adolescents. OBJECTIVES: to determine which religious variables are associated to frequent or heavy use of alcohol, tobacco and drugs among adolescents in intermediate and high schools in Campinas, Brazil. METHODS: A cross-sectional study using a self-report anonymous questionnaire was administered to 2.287 students from a convenience sample of seven schools: five from central areas (two public and three private schools) and two public schools from the outskirts of the city, in 1998. The study analyzes data regarding the use of alcohol, tobacco, medicines, solvents, marijuana, cocaine and ecstasy. The religious variables included in the regression analysis were: religious affiliation, church attendance, self-assessed religiousness, and religious education in childhood. For the substances, nicotine, alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, ecstasy and "abuse of medicines" a logistic regression analysis for dicotomic answer was applied. RESULTS: The heavy use of at least one drug during the last month was more frequent among students that did not have a religious education during childhood. The use in the last month of cocaine, ecstasy and (abuse of) medicines was more frequent among those students that had no religion (cocaine and medicines) and that did not have a religious education during childhood (ecstasy and medicines). CONCLUSIONS: this study is consistent with previous investigations demonstrating a strong influence of religious variables over the use of drugs among adolescents. Interesting, it was found that no or weaker religious education during childhood was markedly associated with significant more use of drugs during adolescence

The Classification of South Africa’s Mixed-Heritage Peoples 1910–2011: A Century of Conflation, Contradiction, Containment, and Contention

Given that South Africa’s first contact with European settlers occurred more than 350 years ago, it is not surprising that the country has large and well-established communities of mixed-heritage peoples. Despite notorious anti-miscegenation legislation—promulgated both before (the Immorality Act No. 5 of 1927) and after (the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act No. 55 of 1949) the introduction of ‘formal’ apartheid—the treatment of mixed-heritage peoples was primarily one of containment involving the classification of all non-European and non-Native individuals into a single category (‘Coloured’), which conflated those of mixed heritage with ostensibly ‘non-mixed’ (sub)groups—such as those of Chinese, Malay, and Indian origin. However, the apartheid state also established mechanisms through which officials, members of the public, and individuals themselves could apply to alter ‘population group’ classifications, which resulted in several thousand ‘reclassifications’, both requested and imposed. Nonetheless, for the vast majority of South Africans, their ‘population group’ classification became an ingrained marker of quasi-racial identity that continues to this day, while the introduction of an ‘Other’ census category and legal disputes concerning the composition of the ‘Coloured’ category reveal that mixed-heritage individuals once again pose a substantive dilemma to census takers and policy makers, and also perhaps to their own sense of place in the ‘Rainbow Nation’