Abstract
Following both international and local waves of criticism due to overwhelming high rates of youth unemployment, the South African post-Apartheid government has passed several economic empowerment policies to address the challenge. In addressing the youth unemployment and sustainability of livelihoods, institutions and their policies availed resources to the youth and left a gap in responding to the elderly's livelihoods. The purpose of this is to evaluate the impact of economic empowerment policies on the South African rural elderly and suggest a framework to respond to the challenge. A qualitative, inductive, interpretative approach was used to achieve the research objectives. Data were collected from 34 purposive (social network analysis group) interviews and 35 snowballing (semi-structured one-on-one) interviews with selected participants from the Jozini and Matatiele municipalities. Data were analysed using Nvivo 12. The findings reveal a lack of institutions and policies that focus on the sustainability of rural elderly livelihoods. It is recommended that policymakers collaborate with the rural elderly with the view to ensure economic empowerment policies respond to their economic empowerment and sustainability of livelihoods beyond retirement. The contribution of the article lies in the use of a sustainable livelihoods framework and Institutional Theory to suggest a solution.
Author Information
Tshililo R. Farisani, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
Pfano Mashau, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
Paper Information
Conference: EGen2023
Stream: Public Policy
This paper is part of the EGen2023 Conference Proceedings (View)
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To cite this article:
Farisani T., & Mashau P. (2023) Evaluating the Impact of Economic Empowerment Policies on the South African Rural Elderly-A Sustainable Livelihoods Approach ISSN: 2435-4937 The European Conference on Aging & Gerontology 2023: Official Conference Proceedings https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2435-4937.2023.1
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2435-4937.2023.1
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