Does Child Support Grant incentivise childbirth in South Africa?

Adeola Oyenubi () and Uma Kollamparambil ()
Additional contact information
Adeola Oyenubi: University of the Witwatersrand
Uma Kollamparambil: University of the Witwatersrand
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Ramaele Moshoeshoe

No 93, ERSA Working Paper Series from Economic Research Southern Africa

Abstract: We consider the perverse incentive that can be created for poor households that are benefiting from the South African Child Support Grant (CSG). We acknowledge the fact that the CSG has been successful in improving child outcomes. However, if caregivers see the CSG as a livelihood strategy and respond with multiple births, this will jeopardize the fiscal sustainability of the transfer in the long run. Such incentive will also perpetuate poverty and inequality which will defeat the very purpose the CSG is meant to achieve. Using the National Income Dynamic Study (NIDS) data, we estimate the relationship between CSG receipt and birth attempts over the last decade using count data models. To control for selection, we use instrumental variable under the Control Function (CF) method. We also check the robustness of our result to alternative assumptions like fixed effects. Our result is robust over the different identification assumptions and shows that those who benefit from the CSG have had more birth attempts within the last decade when compared to non-beneficiaries.

Keywords: Social transfers; poverty; provision and effects of Welfare programs (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D61 I31 I32 I38 Q56 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-10
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Published in ERSA Working Paper Series, October 2024

Downloads: (external link)
https://ersawps.org/index.php/working-paper-series/article/view/93/68 First version, 2024 (application/pdf)

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:rza:ersawp:93

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in ERSA Working Paper Series from Economic Research Southern Africa
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Maggi Sigg ().