Cash, care and social justice: a study of the child support grant

Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. July 2015South Africa claims to be a developmental state with redistribution and justice at the heart of its social policy. The existence of large scale social investment programmes support this claim, such as the well-regarded Child Support Grant (CSG), a cash transfer disbursed to over 11 million poor children monthly. Substantial evidence exists of the important positive material impacts of the CSG. However, is the material improvement of people’s lives enough to deliver social justice? In this study I investigate the social, care, and gendered impacts of the CSG in poor households in Johannesburg in order to investigate whether this cash transfer delivers social justice for the primary caregivers of children getting the grant. Theoretically and empirically I understand social justice as a balance of redistribution, recognition, and representation, drawn from Nancy Fraser’s (1997, 2009, 2013a) work, in order for individuals to live with freedom, agency, and dignity. I combine Fraser’s trivalent theory of social justice with the applicability of the capabilities approach (Nussbaum, 2000, 2003, 2011; Sen, 1999, 2009) to explore the reality of how policy plays out for the individual women who get the grant. Via a feminist narrative approach, I uncover the immediacy, intricacy, and intimacy of the lives of six women who get a CSG on behalf of one or more children in their care. These narratives offer clues to critical areas we need to consider for building a truly just society, and point to the unrealised transformative potential of welfare policy. The study findings corroborate the redistributive benefits of the CSG, and identify some specific positive recognition and representation outcomes too. However, evidence from the data in this research exposes the devastating failures of the South African state in delivering substantive recognition and representation justice, therefore falling short of offering dignity and freedom for caregiver recipients. The narratives demonstrate that, however effective and important, the CSG is a narrow instrument which cannot act alone to offer social justice. Its potential is undermined by institutional, ideological, and political failures which are particularly stark in the area of welfare service provision. Following from these findings, I take issue with the characterisation of the state as ‘developmental’, arguing that a crucial aspect missing from their practice is the practice of care. While the CSG has taken South Africa some distance on the road to social justice, the missed opportunities and crucial shortcomings in caring for a population in need mean we still have a long way to travel

‘That Child Support Grant gives me powers’ – exploring social and relational aspects of cash transfers in South Africa in times of livelihood change

Abstract:This article builds on existing literature on the material effects of cash transfers. It explores people’s own perceptions of the role of unconditional cash transfers in building, maintaining, and transforming social relations in a small village in rural South Africa. Much of the literature studying the impacts of cash transfers in the global South relies on quantitative measures. Thus, there is a paucity of micro-level qualitative research on beneficiaries’ own perspectives on the social impacts of cash transfers. To this end, we explored whether the Child Support Grant, a small cash transfer given to impoverished caregivers of children, changed individual and intra-household relationships, as well as community solidarity in this village. We argue that South Africa’s cash transfers have largely had positive social transformative effects on individuals, in relation to a sense of dignity, autonomy and increased decision-making powers for primary caregivers, usually mothers or grandmothers. Positive effects were also perceived in relation to these households and communities, although some contested effects and limitations were also found. These findings are of interest in the ongoing broader debates around the effects of cash transfers globally as well as regionally in Sub-Saharan Africa

It buys food but does it change gender relations? Child support grants in Soweto, South Africa

A gender lens was applied in an empirical study to assess the dynamics and policy implications of one of South Africa's largest social protection programmes, the Child Support Grant (CSG). The findings are based on a household survey conducted in an urban community in Soweto, South Africa. They suggest that the grant supports women's ability to control and allocate resources, and that this has a positive impact on household food security. While the CSG eases women's burden of care and responsibility for household and child survival, women remain largely responsible for caring and looking after families. This prevails despite increased opportunities for women in society and some small shifts in gender relations in urban areas. Social protection policies such as the CSG do not on their own transform gender relations. To ensure that they contribute to gender transformation, they need to work in concert with other public policies that are specifically designed to support changes toward gender equality

EARLY MOTHERHOOD IN SOWETO: THE NEXUS BETWEEN THE CHILD SUPPORT GRANT AND DEVELOPMENTAL SOCIAL WORK SERVICES

In this article we ask whether the child support grant can mitigate the vulnerability of early motherhood, and if so, in what ways and what are its limits. Using data from a study on CSGs in a poor urban area of Johannesburg, we report on the circumstances of young women recipients. We find that the grant has positive outcomes for the women, but these are limited in the face of the range of needs and support necessary to give the young women a chance to successfully negotiate both motherhood and their own transition to adulthood. We suggest areas where social workers can engage positively with these issue

Learners’ perspectives on school safety in Johannesburg

In this article we report on a South African study conducted with 1,779 learners aged 11 to 18 years from 8 schools in urban areas in and around Johannesburg. These learners’ perspectives on school safety confirm that South African learners experience their schools as unsafe. Their primary concerns related to coercion and violence against learners by peers or teachers on school grounds, although they regarded the physical school environment and domestic and community conditions as impacting school safety. To address safety concerns, learners desired the punishment of offenders and greater involvement and accountability of adults. We recommend an urgent whole-school intervention using a critical gender lens

Cash transfers and caregivers : working together to reduce vulnerability and HIV risk among adolescent girls in Johannesburg, South Africa

Abstract: In South Africa adolescent girls have the highest HIV incidence of any sex or age cohort. Scalable HIV-prevention interventions targeting this group are critical for epidemic control. Reaching 12.2 million children, the Child Support Grant mitigates the socio-structural drivers of HIV risk. This qualitative study of eight adolescents and their caregivers in Westbury, Johannesburg, explored how caregiving increases protective potential. ‘Caregiving’ enhanced the HIV risk-reduction benefits of ‘cash’ when characterised by substantial positive caregiver-adolescent involvement and adequate levels of control and consistency. Results underpin the value of social protection as an HIV-prevention modality and endorse investment in caregiver support programmes

The implementation of the white paper for social welfare in the NGO sector

South Africa adopted a developmental approach to social welfare in line with the United Nations World Declaration on Social Development in 1995 (United Nations 1996). This African experiment with developmental social welfare is an ambitious one given the country’s complex social, cultural, economic and political history, which has shaped the character of the welfare system. The welfare model inherited from the past was inequitable, discriminatory and relied on inappropriate and unsustainable methods of service delivery. It was ineffective in addressing mass poverty and in meeting the basic needs of the majority of the population (Patel, 2005). Social policy was modelled on Western European institutional or ‘welfare state’ policies for whites and a residual system for Blacks. A new national social welfare consensus was forged in the mid-1990s and the social development perspective to social welfare was adopted and implemented. The new policies brought together the positive strands of social welfare theory and practice locally and globally which were integrated with country specific conditions to produce a South African policy that is unique. The White Paper for Social Welfare set the developmental welfare policy framework and informed the redesign of the system (Department of Welfare and Population Development, 1997). Since the adoption and implementation of the new welfare paradigm, significant changes have been noted in the policy and legislative domain (Patel and Selipsky, forthcoming), in the ending of racial discrimination in access to services and benefits, and in the creation of an integrated social welfare system. Two key programmes, namely social security and welfare services, are mandated by the policy. The social grants system has been widely acclaimed as the country’s most effective poverty reduction programme in comparison with slower progress in the transformation of welfare services from a remedial and social treatment approach to a developmental one. Despite these positive developments, institutional challenges in the administration of social development continue to hamper effective service delivery. The gap between policy goals and aspirations and the actual achievement of tangible changes in the quality of the lives of the majority of South Africans remains a significant challenge. Rising unemployment, food prices and poverty coupled with the escalation of the HIV/AIDS pandemic and increasing levels of violence, crime and xenophobia place additional demands on welfare organisations to deliver services. The human development situation of the population as a whole is also impacted by the global economic and national down turn in the economy and by how current political changes in the society are managed

Development of social work education in southern and east Africa : research report.

It is widely accepted that a social development paradigm is both appropriate and necessary for the African context, and social development has significantly influenced social work theory, policy and practice on the continent (Cox and Pawar, 2005, Patel, 2005a, Gray and Fook, 2004). However, it is not always clear exactly what is being referred to with this term. What is also unknown is how much of this debate has positively influenced the training of new social workers across the region. Further, no data exists on how the social development approach is actually being used by the individual schools of social work in the region. In fact, very little is known about social work education in Africa at all. This research project therefore aimed to contribute to knowledge development in this field in Southern and East Africa through primary empirical research