Family transfers in a subsistence economy and under a high incidence of HIV/AIDS: the case of rural Malawi
Mtika, M.M.
Journal of Contemporary African Studies 21(1): 69-95
2003
ISSN/ISBN: 0258-9001 DOI: 10.1080/02589000305453Document Number: 275965
This paper explores patterns of resource transfers among close relatives in rural Malawi, where economic activities are subsistent. The discussion is organized around the concept of embodied capital investment, i.e. the allocation of time and other resources (money and other general types of assistance) to current and future biological, social, and economic reproduction for purposes of ensuring dynastic fitness and continuity. The Malawi Family Transfers survey was conducted from June to August 1999, and involved a random sample of 717 ever-married women and 540 of their husbands. There is evidence that prime-age adults are central to vertical or intergenerational resource transfers (resource flows upward to their parents and downward to their children) and lateral or generational resource exchanges (respondent exchanges with their brothers and sisters). The giving-receiving ratios and net flows showed that children have the highest claim over their parents' resources and reciprocate the least, followed by mothers, then brothers and sisters, and lastly fathers. This research has not established the effect of HIV/AIDS on transfers vis-a-vis embodied capital investment. It has, however, demonstrated the critical role of prime-age adults in transfers, and that prime adults' health status is an important factor in their involvement in exchanges with primary kin and friends. Since HIV/AIDS mostly strikes prime-age adults, the key players in transfers and embodied capital investment processes, the epidemic is striking the core of the resource flow system in subsistent economies.