Poverty has been identified as a common feature of low-income urban neighbourhoods (Wilson, 1987; Stack, 1997; Mitlin, 2005). This is attributed to the high number of people with low educational achievement, unemployed people, and people working in low-income jobs who tend to reside in these areas (Wilson, 1987; Broussard et al., 2012). Female-headed households in Botswana are one of the groups that are highly affected by poverty (BIDPA, 2013). Single mothers staying in Old Naledi therefore are highly likely to be poor, given the disadvantage associated with staying in low-income urban communities. As discussed in Chapter two, poverty has been identified as a potential stressor for single mothers residing in such communities. Participants were thus asked how the poverty in Old Naledi affected them. The participants reported that the poverty affected them emotionally and materially, although a few of them, as presented in Table 4.11, said that poverty did not affect them in any way.
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Table 4.11: Effects of Poverty on Single Mothers Theme: Poverty as a Stressor
Sub-theme Category Narrative
Effect of
Poverty on
Single Mothers
Emotional “It affects me emotionally because I see people who are suffering but I am unable to help them.” (E a nkama ka gore ke bona batho ba sokola mme go sena gore ke ka ba thusa jang)
“It affects me emotionally because I see other people suffering and I wonder what I would do if it was me.” (Le a nkama ka gore ke bona ka fa batho ba bangwe ba sotlegang ka teng e be ke ipotsa gore fa e ne e lenna ke kabo ke dira jang tota)
“It affects me because I see children who are needy who do not go to school and this breaks my heart.” (Le a nkama ka gore ke bona bana ba ba tlhokang ba ba tlholeng ba tsena le fa e le sekolo tota, selo se se nkutlwisa botlhoko hela thata)
“It affects me because we cannot even think of what to do to get ourselves out of this situation. We are just looking onto our parents and depend on boyfriends who now own us.” (Go a nkama ka gore ga re sa tlhole re kgona le go ikakanyetsa gore re ka tswa jang mo seemong se. Re labile batsadi le di-boyfriend tse di setseng di re owna jaanong)
Material “Poverty affects me because I live in poverty but there is no one to assist me with my children so that I can go find a job.” (Lehuma le nkama ka gore ke tshelela mo go lone mme ga go na ope yoo nthusang ka bana gore ke ye go batla tiro)
“It affects me because we are unable to get jobs and find ways of sustaining ourselves even though we would like to take care of ourselves.” (Le nkama ka gore ga re kgone go bona ditiro le ditsela tse re ka itshetsang ka tsone ntswa re batla go iperekela le go itirela)
“It affects me because I cannot find a job. Others lack accommodation and are overcrowded in very small houses.” (Le nkama ka gore ga ke kgone go bona tiro. Ba bangwe ga bana accommodation, ban ne mo musukeng ba le bantsi)
It does not affect me
“There is no poverty in Old Naledi and as such it does not affect me in any way.” (Ga gona lehuma mo Old Naledi ka jalo ga nkake kare ke a amega ka tsela epe) “Poverty is not a problem, the only problem here is the unruly behaviour of the people in Old Naledi.” (Bothata ga se lehuma, bothata jo bo teng hela ke maitshwaro a batho mo Old Naledi)
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4.6.3.1 Emotional Effect
Close to a quarter of the participants said that poverty affected them emotionally. Wadsworth and Santiago (2008: 399) explained that “much of the risk for compromised physical and mental health of individuals living in poverty can be traced to the stress borne of living without what one needs.” The single mothers’ statements about how poverty affected them captured in Table 4.11 shows that the participants have appraised the situation as taxing and as exceeding their ability to address it. According to stress theory, this gives rise to stress among individuals (Folkman & Lazarus, 1988; Broussard et al., 2012). The ecological systems theory explains this situation as a conflict between the person and their environment which can lead to stress (Germain & Gitterman, 1996). Wadsworth and Santiago (2008) also added that poverty-related stress was connected to a variety of psychological problems such as depression, anxiety and attention difficulties. The trend emerging from the participants’ responses was that the poverty affected them indirectly in that they saw other people suffering and in need, but were unable to assist them, which evoked a sense of helplessness as the participants themselves did not have the means to assist. This situation affected the participants psychologically.
4.6.3.2 Material Effect
The majority of the participants indicated that poverty affected them materially. Bastos et al. (2009), in their study of women and poverty, listed five areas in which poverty manifests itself among women; these are through lack of economic resources; unemployment; low educational attainment, if any; low social involvement; and more time spent on family and private life. Broussard et al., (2012) added that poverty for single mothers included worries related to work and unemployment, housing, lack of financial resources and food insecurity. From these studies it is evident that poverty tends to affect individuals through lack of or inadequate material and / or financial resources. In the present study, the trend that was noted was that the participants emphasised the lack of jobs as having the more serious effect. This was because participants envisioned that they would be able to get the financial resources they need to buy the material resources that they needed once they got jobs. Those who were working and running small businesses regretted the insufficiency of the money that they made at the end of the month, saying it was not enough to meet their needs and they therefore hoped for better-paying jobs.
4.6.3.3 No Effect
Close to a quarter of the participants said that there was no poverty in Old Naledi and, as such, poverty did not affect them. One participant did note that there was poverty in Old Naledi but said that this poverty did not affect her in any way. The participants who were interviewed, although residing in the same area, were different in that some of them were living in family homes which they owned,
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while others were renting those who own the houses. Differences therefore occur in terms of those who have more and those who do not have much, which, in turn, could result in the difference in the lived experiences of these single mothers. Segal (2007) sought to understand why Americans were not distressed by the poverty and inequality rampant in one of the richest countries in the world. She concluded that the major reason was because the people could not relate with those living in poverty; they lacked personal experience of poverty and that is the reason why most of them believe that every individual should be responsible for his or her own wellbeing and why they did not support the government assistance programmes for needy people. To address this, Segal (2008) proposed three steps: exposure to those living in poverty; explanation to understand the difference between those who have and those who do not; and experience through imagining what life must be like for an individual living in poverty. She pointed out that these steps were especially important for policy makers who were now more and more distant from the people for whom they were developing policies (Segal, 2008). This study was conducted from the assumption that all people would be affected by poverty in Old Naledi; therefore the scope of the study did not go beyond exploring how poverty affected single mothers in the area. As such it is not possible to explain why some single mothers were not affected by poverty in Old Naledi.