Opphold i Sør-Afrika gjennom YSSP under forskningstemaet "Demographic differential vulnerability to environmental change"

Female-headed households, land ownership, and vulnerability to climate change in South Africa Four in every ten households in South Africa are female headed, a high and rising share which is due to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, labour migration, lack of union formation, and separations. The poverty incidence for this group is almost twice that of male-headed households. The recognition that many of the poorest and most vulnerable tend to be young, female and black provides a political rationale for South Africa's land reform in which policy makers have intended to give women special priority. Although the amount of land redistributed and the share allotted to female-headed households is far less than originally envisaged, some eight million hectares have been transferred to more than 230.000 black farmers and entrepreneurs. The government has recently decided to re-open the period for submissions of land claims, and the bulk of redistribution through land reform is still to come. How land redistribution may affect rural livelihoods and particularly disadvantaged groups are thus highly relevant questions for policy-makers, including how the impact will depend on climate volatility. Keswell and Carter (2013) find that land reform in South Africa causes increased consumption among recipients after the first year. Still, critics of land reform have argued that small-scale farming increases vulnerability for poor households compared to agricultural wage employment and reduces overall productivity. Female-headed households might benefit less from land ownership due to smaller plots being allocated to them and lack of access to complementary resources, and an important question is how these households cope with increasingly volatile weather shocks, and in particular how land ownership affects vulnerability for this heterogeneous yet disadvantaged group.