Gendered childcare norms – evidence from rural Swaziland to inform innovative structural HIV prevention approaches for young women.
Outcomes: Human Immunodeficiency Virus
View SourceKey Social Norms Take-aways Entrenched expectations that women, especially young women, will shoulder childcare responsibilities without support reinforce economic vulnerability and risky sexual dynamics. Structural interventions that challenge the gendered division of labor, reduce economic dependency, and shift norms around caregiving are crucial to preventing HIV among young women in Swaziland and similar settings.
Objectives This study explored how gendered childcare norms in rural Swaziland (now Eswatini) shape young women’s vulnerability to HIV. It aimed to understand how unpaid childcare responsibilities limit girls’ and young women’s educational, economic, and sexual autonomy and to suggest how structural HIV prevention approaches might better address these norms.
Methods The researchers conducted a participatory action research study involving focus group discussions and a demographic and health census survey. A participatory, qualitatively-driven approach was used, engaging community members in data collection and analysis. Interpretive analysis, informed by the capabilities approach to human development, was applied to examine how gendered norms affected young women’s HIV risk.
Results The study found that young women are expected to provide unpaid care for both biological and non-biological children, often at great personal cost. Performing unpaid childcare constrained girls’ and women’s access to education and employment, increasing their financial dependence on men. This dependence heightened their vulnerability to transactional sex and reduced their power to negotiate safe sexual practices. Traditional norms enforced that women prioritize caregiving, while men’s obligations to support children materially were weakening. Some young women were further disadvantaged by expectations to care for younger siblings or children born outside of marriage, deepening cycles of poverty and increasing HIV risk.
Conclusions Childcare norms are a major but under-recognized driver of young women’s HIV risk. Structural HIV prevention strategies must address discriminatory gender norms that assign unpaid childcare to women. Effective approaches should challenge these norms, economically empower women, and implement policies that promote gender equality in caregiving and material support for children.
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