How the HIV/AIDS crisis shaped financial planning for black South Africans

Two decades ago, a generation of Black South African children quietly stepped into a new kind of adulthood. They had survived a crisis that left millions of others behind, the HIV and AIDS epidemic that devastated families, collapsed social safety nets, and exposed the fault lines of racial inequality. Today, that same generation is emerging as the face of the country’s growing Black middle class.

But theirs is not a story of typical economic progress. Unlike the inheritors of generational wealth seen in more privileged communities, this generation has inherited something else entirely: responsibility without precedent, trauma without closure, and the burden of being the first.

At the height of the epidemic in the late 1990s and early 2000s, South Africa experienced one of the highest HIV prevalence rates in the world. The hardest hit were Black communities, many still reeling from the structural violence of apartheid and economic exclusion. The epidemic aimed at the very demographic positioned to accumulate and transfer wealth, young and middle-aged adults, and left in its wake a generation of orphans, child-headed households, and grandparents raising grandchildren on social grants.

By the early 2000s, millions of children had lost one or both parents. Estate planning was rarely in place. In most cases, no will existed, no policies had been paid out, and no bank accounts had been left behind. What did remain, a modest house, a few cattle, perhaps a family business, often fell into dispute, neglect, or legal limbo. In some families, property was sold off hastily to pay for funerals. In others, relatives arrived with expectations but not solutions. Where systems failed, custom stepped in, but not always fairly.

For many of those children, now grown and leading households of their own, this fractured history still shapes how they relate to money. They are the first in their families to earn a steady income, the first to own a home, the first to open a tax-free savings account, or speak to a financial planner. But they are also the first to know what it’s like to bury a parent with no resources, to carry a younger sibling on their medical aid, or to support ageing relatives while raising children of their own.

In this context, financial planning becomes something far more complex than simply budgeting or investing. It is, for many, an act of emotional and generational repair.

What sets this generation apart is not only their drive to build, but their deep awareness of what was lost. The absence of inheritance is not a theoretical concept to them; it is lived memory. For some, it was the lost chance at education after a parent’s death; for others, the breakdown of the family home, or the trauma of moving from relative to relative with no place to call their own. These formative experiences have created a cohort of planners who are deeply motivated, not by the accumulation of wealth alone, but by the determination not to repeat history.

There is a striking intentionality to how this generation approaches legacy. Many are purchasing life cover before they buy their first home. Others are insisting on drafting wills even if their estates are modest, knowing full well how damaging the absence of legal clarity can be. Some are establishing savings accounts not only for their own children, but for nieces, nephews, or younger siblings who depend on them. These decisions are not driven by affluence; in many cases, they are made on tight budgets, but by the quiet insistence that the next generation must inherit more than hardship.

Yet, despite their caution and resilience, many still plan in the dark. Financial literacy, access to legal support, and understanding of estate tools are still skewed by class and race. Too often, those most affected by historical inequality are left navigating complex financial systems without guidance. And while the state and private sector have made strides in encouraging formal planning, the messaging has rarely addressed the historical context, that for many Black South Africans, financial trauma is not abstract. It is interwoven with grief, secrecy, and survival.

What emerges is a need not just for financial products, but for financial empathy. Those who work in this space, planners, advisors, insurers, and policymakers, must understand that they are not serving individuals in a vacuum. They are working with people whose financial behaviour is shaped by national and family histories of loss, fragmentation, and self-reliance.

In many ways, this generation is laying foundations that were meant to have been laid two or three generations earlier. Their work is not just economic; it is deeply cultural and emotional. They are writing the wills their parents never got to write. They are holding family meetings that their grandparents didn’t know how to call. They are creating legacies from the ashes of disruption.

If South Africa is to close its wealth gap and enable true intergenerational equity, this group must be recognised and supported for what they are: builders of a new legacy, not out of abundance, but out of necessity and memory.

Because while they were never meant to inherit, they have chosen to ensure that someone does.

* Tapfuma is a Certified Financial Planner professional at Crue Invest.

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