South Africa has one of the highest rates of non-resident fathers in Africa, after Namibia,1
with only about a third
of preschool children co-residing with their fathers.2
Father absence is attributed to, variously, labor migration,
violence, abandonment, AIDS, violent and accident-related paternal deaths, poverty and unemployment.3
Popular assertions and policy proposals tend to make the linked assumptions between father absence and lack
of support for children. However, given that most Africans in the southern African region live within a network of
extended family relations,4
having children living apart from fathers, especially due to migrant labor does not
automatically mean that the children are being neglected or not being cared for by their fathers, especially given
that most migrant laborers return their earnings to their families in the form of remittances. Nor does it equate to
a break in social connectedness between a father and child.5
Father’s physical location and child involvement
are two separate dimensions of father connection to his children