Publications
Partners
Johannesburg - Having to support both their own children and their parents, as well as the toll on young black people seeking careers, are major challenges impacting their ability to save.
“If you’re not saving for your children’s education because you’re supporting elders as well, the result will be an uneducated generation which is less able to find work,” Old Mutual head of financial education John Manyike told a panel discussion at the SA Savings Institute (Sasi).
The panel discussion which formed part of Sasi's Savings Month initiative, focused on ‘the Sandwich Generation’, a slice of our population which has been identified by research done by Old Mutual in recent years.
Manyike defined this group as people aged perhaps 40 to 60, who are supporting both children and their aged parents and relatives. This phenomenon is not confined to any one group, or even to South Africa – he pointed out that a Pew Centre study about a decade ago showed that one in eight 40- to 60-year-olds in the USA are supporting both children and parents.
But it does impact particularly badly on black South Africans who are inching into the middle class. Many of them are the first in their families to achieve a tertiary qualification and have a shot at a really good income, but “there is an expectation by society that you need to contribute to those who brought you up”.
That doesn’t just mean parents – it includes grandparents and uncles and aunts and even neighbours who may have babysat while your own parents went out to work.
Add to this the ‘black tax’ described by Ayabonga Cawe of Dalberg Global Development Advisors - a toll on young black people seeking careers which is the legacy of apartheid. He gave an example: a young person who is employed as an intern in the presidency, yet is living in Lenasia, and therefore has much further to travel than her peers would have to.
“Transport is their biggest challenge in accessing employment,” he noted. The end result of these phenomena is intergenerational, Manyike said.
“If you’re not saving for your children’s education because you’re supporting elders as well, the result will be an uneducated generation which is less able to find work.”
The solution? Manyike reminded the audience of the safety instructions when you fly: “In the unlikely event of a loss of cabin pressure, panels above your seat will open revealing oxygen masks.”
You are always told first to secure your own gas masks before helping others, he said, because if you don’t take care of yourself, you won’t be able to care sustainably for others.
