REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA COMBINED SECOND PERIODIC REPORT UNDER THE AFRICAN CHARTER ON HUMAN AND PEOPLE`S RIGHTS and INITIAL REPORT UNDER THE PROTOCOL TO THE AFRICAN CHARTER ON THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN IN AFRICA 17. The percentage of “skip generation” households is even larger among older persons (15.1%). Census 2011 also found that extended families comprised 31.8% of female-headed households compared to 18.4% of households headed by males. Women-headed households in general tend to be predominantly responsible for the care of children. 18. Poverty patterns in South Africa continue to be gendered. Female-headed households are consistently more likely to be poor, more likely to have low incomes, more likely to be dependent on social grants, and less likely to have employed members. 19. More than half (51.4%) of female-headed households are poor compared to 29.5% of maleheaded households. Some 44.3% of female-headed households were without a single employed member compared to 23.5% of male-headed households. 20. Child-inclusive female-headed households are much more likely to experience hunger and food insecurity than other households. For example, the Living Conditions Survey for 2008/9 found that female-headed households, at the food poverty line (R305 per capita per month in 2009 prices) were almost twice as likely to be poor (22,7% were below the poverty line) than male-headed households (where 11,9% were below the poverty line). At the upper level (R577 per capita in 2009 prices), 49.9% of households headed by women were found to be poor, compared to 30.4% of male-headed households.279 21. In the past women were unable to access the same economic resources and opportunities as men. The resulting inequality was, and still is, intensified by additional race-based discrimination and growing inequality in the country. Women are over-represented in informal job market, lowskilled, low-paying jobs and the wage gap between male and female earnings persists, particularly in low and semi-skilled occupations.280 22. There is continuous division of labour between women and men, where women’s roles are largely confined to reproductive, care and community roles. Women’s roles are underrated in economic terms and their work is demoted to being domestic and unpaid.281 23. As a result of their longer life-expectancy, elderly females are more vulnerable to poverty and food insecurity, quite often compounded by being primary care-givers to grandchildren. 24. Women’s living conditions and quality of life are directly affected by the basic services their households receive. In addition to being responsible for securing basic needs (such as fetching water and fire-wood), women are often primary care-givers to more than just their own children in families. This role is compounded by increasing numbers of child orphans and the HIV and AIDS pandemic. A lack of access to basic services increases poor households’ vulnerability to disease. Larger percentages of household income is often spent on increasingly less diverse and less 279 Statistics SA, 2013: Men, Women and Children: Findings of the Living Conditions Survey 2008/9. Pretoria Ibid: page 62. (And see May, 1998; Bhorat 2009) 281 Ibid: Page 62 280 145