Economic Decline, Health Worker Migration and its Impact on Female Workload in Zimbabwe

Abstract

This paper explores the implications of Home Based Care on women’s workload in the context of high HIV and AIDS prevalence rates in Zimbabwe as the country has experienced serious health worker migration since 2000. Health worker migration in Zimbabwe as a result of the weak performance of the economy over the years has inadvertently increased women’s workload as more and more people adopt Home Based Care for their terminally ill family members suffering from HIV and AIDS. Home-based care has been one of the most effective community care strategies in Zimbabwe for people living with HIV and AIDS. To explore this state of affairs the paper adopted the theory of reflexive modernity which argues that the progressive freeing of the agency from structure has the effect of releasing people from the inherent constrains of the socio-structural tradition of modernity. The conclusion is that in the Zimbabwean context were women are viewed as the ‘natural’ care givers reflexive modernity may fail to apply as increased health worker migration is increasing women’s workload as more women are involved in Home Based Care in the context of high HIV and AIDS prevalence rates.