Men’s Migration and Women’s Social Ties and Well-Being in Rural Mozambique.

Ines Raimundo, Eduardo Mondlane University
Victor Agadjanian, Department of Sociology and the International Institute University of California - Los Angeles

Many families in southern Mozambique became dependent on the migratory labor system, which guaranteed migrants' wives and their children a different economic and social status. That dependence has provided advantages for families in rural areas ravaged by the reduction in livelihoods and societal transformations. Meanwhile, with the reduction of recruitment in South Africa and the lack of jobs in the cities of Mozambique, significant consequences for rural families are happening, including transforming support exchanges relationships between middle-age mothers and their children, with implications for their economic and psycho-social and well-being. Using qualitative data collected in southern Mozambique as part of the project "Social Ties and Psycho-social Well-being of Rural Women", we observed a new relationship dynamic that, among various consequences, children and mothers find themselves their backs turned. This situation worsens because mothers do not see a clue of changes, further exacerbated by the fact that they are getting older.