Essays on Welfare and Gender Inequality in South Africa
Open Access DepositedDownloadable Content
Introduced in 1998, the Child Support Grant (CSG) in South Africa is one of the largest unconditional cash transfer programs in the world, with expenditures amounting to 1.2 percent of GDP. This thesis first examines the overall trend of beneficiaries and take-up patterns of CSG from 2002 to 2015, using General Household Surveys. Over the studied period, the number of beneficiaries increased substantially, driven almost equally by expanded age eligibility and rising take-up rates among eligible cohorts. Despite loose enforcement of the means test, inclusion errors remain limited, suggesting that self-selection effectively targets low-income households while avoiding welfare cliffs. Among eligible mothers, take-up is higher among those who are Black African, unemployed, less educated, or living in rural areas, and lower among those with tertiary education, employment, or urban residence. A higher dependency ratio within the household, chronic illness, and owing a dwelling also increase the likelihood of grant receipt. Following the program take-up and targeting, this paper then uses the same dataset to examine how CSG affects mothers’ labor market outcomes at the extensive margin. Identification exploits multiple exogenous expansions of the grant and applies a difference-in-differences design augmented with propensity score matching or inverse probability weighting. Across specifications, I find little evidence suggesting that CSG receipt depresses mothers’ labor market outcomes. The limited negative responses are concentrated among relatively more advantaged mothers—those who are married, with higher education, and those in households with less liquidity constraints. These findings suggest that in settings characterized by high inequality and high unemployment, transfers targeted to children may support disadvantaged mothers without undermining their labor market prospects. In the last chapter, the paper examines the latest developments in gender inequality in South Africa in the labor market. Unlike previous recessions, early evidence suggests that the COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately affected female workers. The chapter examines gendered labor market dynamics in South Africa using Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) from 2017 to 2023, employing difference-in-differences and triple-differences strategies. Overall, gender gaps in labor force participation and employment narrowed in the post-pandemic period, driven by a stronger labor market rebound among women relative to men and some added-worker effects. Triple-differences estimates further reveal that living with preschool-aged children exacerbated gender gaps across nearly all outcomes, though these effects were mitigated in households with co-resident elderly women. The results point to a nuanced trajectory
a short-lived “she-cession” at the early stage of the pandemic—partly cushioned by informal care within multigenerational households and added-worker effect - followed by a recovery shaped by sectoral patterns.
- All rights reserved
Notice to Authors
If you are the author of this work and you have any questions about the information on this page, please use the Contact form to get in touch with us.