The reach and impact of Child Support Grants: evidence from KwaZulu-Natal

TLDR

The study investigates the reach and impact of South Africa’s Child Support Grant using longitudinal data from the Africa Centre for Health and Population Studies. The authors analyze longitudinal data collected through the Africa Centre for Health and Population Studies to assess grant uptake and its effects. The grant is taken up by roughly one‑third of eligible children, reaches poorer households, increases enrollment among recipients, yet older siblings of recipients enroll less, indicating the grant helps counteract poverty’s impact on schooling.

Abstract

This paper examines the reach and impact of the South African Child Support Grant, using longitudinal data collected through the Africa Centre for Health and Population Studies. The grant is being taken up for a third of all age-eligible resident children, and appears to be reaching those children living in the poorer households of the demographic surveillance area (DSA). Children who received the grant are significantly more likely to be enrolled in school in the years following grant receipt than are equally poor children of the same age. However, older brothers and sisters of grant recipients, when they were observed at younger ages, were less likely than other children to be enrolled in school – perhaps reflecting the greater poverty in grant-receiving households. Thus the grant appears to help overcome the impact of poverty on school enrolment.