# **2 Contextual Framework and Literature Review**

## **2.1 Context**

### **2.1.1 Old age and land tenure security in Sub-Saharan Africa**

In Sub-Saharan Africa, old-age pensions are uncommon, covering less than 10 percent of the labor force (Abels and Guven, 2016; Social Security Administration, 2019).<sup>2</sup> In their absence, economic security in old-age can be precarious. Reliance upon children, extended family, and kinship networks for support in old-age is the norm, as is provisioning for oneself to the extent than one can, for example through investments that can be used to generate income (US National Research Council, 2006). In SSA, the most common strategies are to invest in children, with the expectation that their offspring will support them in old age, or to invest in real estate (i.e., land and buildings), as it can serve both as a means to store wealth as well as a productive asset that can be used to generate income streams (O’Sullivan, 2017). Houses and shops can be built brick-by-brick and later rented out, and land can be used to plant tree crops that will yield harvests in the decades to come. Investing in real estate, however, is only a path to long-term economic security if an individual has secure land rights.

In most of SSA, land is predominantly owned by men, including land that elsewhere would be considered marital property. In addition, husbands and wives are not protected equally if one of the spouses happens to die. In patrilineal societies, which comprise most of the world and which are prevalent in the countries under study, customary inheritance laws exclude the wife from inheritance rights. In the case of widowhood, only male descendants (including the man’s children from previous relationships) or other male relatives can inherit the home and land (Asiimwe, 2009; United Nations, 2001; Ndulo, 2011; Richardson, 2004; WLEA, 2001; White et al., 2002). This framework is reinforced by the Shariah, which restricts widows’ rights to only 1/8 of the husband’s assets, to potentially be shared with cowives. These customs often result in widows being deprived not only of their husbands, but also of their homes as well as of the lands that they have spent their lives farming. While many SSA countries have passed laws that provide women with the right to inherit land from their deceased husbands, customs often continue to take precedence over formal laws (USAID, 2013; Korang-Okrah and Haight, 2015). Importantly, most women also do not have assets of their own when they become widows because they were previously discriminated against as daughters when their families of origin distributed inheritance.

### **2.1.2 The vulnerability of widows**

Women’s lack of inheritance rights is one of main reasons why widows are among the poorest groups in SSA (United Nations, 2001). In Mali, Van de Walle (2013) has shown the negative 2In Sub-Saharan Africa, self-employment is the main source of income and employment, and most economic activity—50 percent of economic output, and 85 percent of employment—is in the informal sector (African Development Bank, 2021; World Bank, 2022a,b). While pensions schemes do exist, these are typically contributory social security schemes that are restricted to civil servants and formal sector employees (US National Research Council, 2006). Non-contributory universal pension systems would offer broader coverage, but most SSA countries lack the means to finance such systems (United Nations, 2007).

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