Gauging levels of welfare using data on income and expenditure is informative yet limited and can be enhanced by including non-money-metric measures. Nationally representative data sets from 1993 and 2010-2011 which cover a broad set of domains are used to calculate a multidimensional poverty...

This paper provides a brief summary of key labour market outcomes in Wave 2 of NIDS and also examines labour market transitions that occurred between Wave 1 and Wave 2. This corresponds approximately to changes between 2008 and 2010. The primary purpose of this paper is to spur discussion of...

At the time of the transition to democracy in 1994, the South African social security system was already notably well developed for a middle income country (Lund 1993; Van der Berg 1997; Case and Deaton 1998). This fact can be ascribed to the way in which the system developed under apartheid as a...

The paper analyses poverty and inequality changes in South Africa for the period 1996 to 2001 using Census data. To gain a broader picture of wellbeing in South Africa, both income-based and access-based measurement approaches are employed. At the national level, findings from the income-based...

Using data from a detailed chronic poverty survey of three South African communities, this paper compares the correlations between traditional (i.e. income and expenditure) and wealth-based measures of poverty in ranking households as poor as well as their ability to explain additional...

Gauging levels of welfare using data on income and expenditure is informative yet limited and can be enhanced by including non-money-metric measures. Nationally representative data sets from 1993 and 2010-2011 which cover a broad set of domains are used to calculate a multidimensional poverty...

This paper surveys the South African and international literature surrounding the impact of cash transfers on labour supply. We find that although social transfers are condemned for creating state-dependency, the reality is that their effect on labour force participation is both ambiguous and...

In comparison to other continents, Africa has received little scholarly attention with regard to household composition. Household composition is endogenous to a variety of welfare issues and little is understood about the determinants of this composition. Understanding the household composition...

We estimate the effect of the child support grant on mothers' labour supply in South Africa. Identification is based on the use of specific samples, such as black mothers, aged 20 to 45, whose youngest child is aged within 2 years of the age eligibility cut-off, and unanticipated variation over...

The extension of the Child Support Grant in South Africa to all children aged 17 or under gives the opportunity to evaluate this type of social transfer and its effect on school enrolment. Using exogenous variation in the fraction of life exposed to the grant, we find the grant is associated...