The Experience of Working Families in Botswana
	In Botswana and much of sub-Saharan Africa, the social transformations of rapid development are accompanied by a catastrophic epidemic of HIV/AIDS. According to the World Health Organization, over 30 million people in the region have been infected with HIV, including over one person in five between the ages of 15 and 49 in Botswana, Namibia, Swaziland and Zimbabwe. In Botswana, a country of 1.5 million people, major cities and towns report prevalence of HIV among pregnant women averaging nearly 40 percent in 2002. The same generation affected by the epidemic has participated in a dramatic migration from rural to urban areas: the urban percentage of Botswana’s population more than tripled in the last two decades of the twentieth century. Pandemic conditions affect the way people work, raise children, and participate in their communities. Individuals and communities struggling to cope with disease have markedly increased caregiving needs–yet the supply of caretakers becomes tighter as more family members grow ill, and those who remain must work to survive. Without new sources of support, inadequate caregiving resources are divided among the sick and the young, threatening the health of both populations as well as that of the caregivers themselves. How do infected parents manage to economically support and care for their children even as their own health requires increasing attention? How do the healthy care for the sick while still supporting themselves and their families? What are employers doing to make caregiving possible as the healthy labor force shrinks? Research on the ways families manage these multiple challenges is important both as a means of designing treatment and support programs for AIDS and as a critical first step toward sustaining families, the economy, and society. Our study focus sites were: Gaborone, Lobatse, and Molepolole. Gaborone is Botswana’s largest city and its capital, Lobatse is a small town, and Molepolole is characterized by the census as an urban village. The selected sites include clinics providing care to populations that are diverse in occupation, socioeconomic status, family structure, and ethnicity. For more information, please see: Miller C, Gruskin S, Rajaraman D, Subramanian VD, and Heymann SJ. The orphan crisis in Botswana’s working households: Growing caregiving responsibilities in the absence of adequate support. American Journal of Public Health. Forthcoming. Rajaraman D, Russell S, and Heymann SJ. HIV / AIDS, Income Loss & Economic Survival in Botswana. AIDS Care. Forthcoming. Heymann SJ. Forgotten Families: Ending the Growing Crisis Confronting Children and Working Parents in the Global Economy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Heymann SJ, Fischer A, and Engelman M. Labor Conditions and the Health of Children, Elderly and Disabled Family Members. In: Heymann SJ, ed. Global Inequalities at Work: Work’s Impact on the Health of Individuals, Families, and Societies. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Gbadebo P, Rayman-Read AR and Heymann SJ. Biological and Social Risks Intertwined: The case of AIDS in Africa. In: Heymann SJ, ed. Global Inequalities at Work: Work’s Impact on the Health of Individuals, Families, and Societies. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Back to In-Depth Interviews
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