Impact of Family Structure on Household Economy in Malawi: A Case of Chinsapo 2 and Area 49, an Urban Setting in Lilongwe City in Malawi.

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume VI, Issue III, March 2022 | ISSN 2454–6186

Impact of Family Structure on Household Economy in Malawi: A Case of Chinsapo 2 and Area 49, an Urban Setting in Lilongwe City in Malawi.

Lovemore G. Mwanandi and Cherrie Mwanandi
Private Industry Practioners

Abstract: This study assessed the impact of family structure on household well-being using family savings, family income and food security as variables. Data was collected from 102 households and analyzed using descriptive statistics by computation of means, percentages, variances, standard deviations and frequency distributions, and inferential statistics. The results show that there is a positive relationship between family structure and household economy, and that people living in the urban are better off than those in the semi-rural or rural areas. The study further indicated that female and youth headed households or families are disadvantaged as compared to male and adult headed households or families.

Keywords: Family structure, households, savings, income, migration, modernization, and food security

1. BACKGROUND

1.1. Introduction

Population dynamics is a macro-economic issue when it affects the entire world and a micro-economic issue when it affects individuals and families. The National Statistics Office (NSO) in Malawi, illustrates that a family consists of people who share a place of residence and are related through blood ties or legal contracts (NSO, 2008 Population and Housing Census, 2008). Most studies have demonstrated that there is high population growth in developing countries than in developed countries. However, due to the demographic transition, population growth is slowing down, and there are low birth and death rates, (C. Elbers, 2004); United Nations, 2007; Dutt, ‎2007; Wako, ‎2012; Atanda, ‎2012; Peterson, 2017; Todaro & Smith, 2020). (Perkins D. R., 2001) and Chamie & Mirkin, 2020 state that very few governments, for example, Japan promotes reproduction because it appeals to the value of freedom whilst India, Pakistan, the Republic of Korea, and Egypt in Africa are against reproduction because these countries had a high population density such that policies have been formulated that set a maximum number of children in a family.
Malawi has not come up with a policy that restricts or sets a maximum number of children in a family. However, it has a Sexual and Reproductive Health Policy that aims at providing a framework for the provision of accessible, acceptable and affordable, comprehensive sexual and reproductive and health rights services to all women, men, and young people of Malawi through informed choices to enable them attain their reproductive rights and goals safely. It emphasizes the prevention of unplanned and unwanted pregnancies by providing family planning services.
In our context, a family structure refers to the combination of relatives in the home and does not only deal with the unweighted members in the household but it also deals with the sex and age of the household head (Bogenschneider, 2010). All families have protective factors and risk factors given the characteristic of the home. For example, a single parent family would provide more protection but be prone to poverty than a two parent home affected by alcohol and violence but less likely to be poor (Shin, 2008). Family structures differ from country to country. Nuclear families and single parent families are common in developed countries because most of them are commercial societies where the parents’ source and obtain the family necessities, hence, a few people in the home. In developing countries, extended family households are common but are now being overtaken by nuclear households due to the population increase (Ruby, 2006).

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