The Impacts of Unconditional Cash Transfers on Schooling in Adolescence and Young Adulthood: Evidence from South Africa

Neryvia Pillay

Journal of African Economies, 2025, vol. 34, issue 5, 521-540

Abstract: I study an expansion of a South African social grant program that, for the first time, extended eligibility for unconditional cash transfers to adolescents. Between 2009 and 2012, the age eligibility for the child support grant was progressively raised, extending eligibility from children under 14 to those under 18. I use a difference-in-difference identification strategy that exploits cross birth cohort variation in adolescent grant eligibility generated by these age eligibility changes to examine the effect of unconditional cash transfers on schooling outcomes in both adolescence and young adulthood. I find that adolescent grant eligibility increases both enrollment and attainment, with the largest effects observed among rural individuals and those with the lowest baseline numerical literacy.

Keywords: cash transfers; education; adolescents; South Africa; social grants; difference-in-difference (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/jae/ejaf003 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:jafrec:v:34:y:2025:i:5:p:521-540.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of African Economies is currently edited by Francis Teal

More articles in Journal of African Economies from Centre for the Study of African Economies Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().