Abstract
While there is a significant body of literature on cash transfers, including South Africa's Child Support Grant (CSG), and evidence regarding their impacts in alleviating poverty, including childhood poverty (Lund et al., 2009; Patel, 2013; Zembe-Mkabile et al., 2015; Patel et al., 2018; Garman et al., 2022), there is limited research on how cash transfers for children can support youth transitions towards long-term outcomes such as higher education and training enrolment, employment seeking, and starting an entrepreneurial business.
The CSG is available to recipients from birth until 18 years of age. Beneficiaries automatically lose eligibility upon reaching the age of 18 regardless of whether or not a beneficiary is enrolled in a basic or higher education and training institution. Around this time young adults transition from school to adulthood, seeking career advancement and economic inclusion. However, high youth unemployment in South Africa and the costs of post-secondary education hinder their progress.
The purpose of this study was to investigate whether and how the CSG, a means-tested cash transfer, might be used to save and build assets, which could in turn facilitate a smooth youth transition. Savings and asset building for youth transition purposes were the focus of this study's exploration of whether the CSG has transformative potential . In this thesis, transformative social protection refers to ways in which social protection mechanisms can be used to overcome structural barriers to inclusion (Devereux & Sabates-Wheeler 2004). The CSG is not specifically designed as a transformative cash transfer. It is a grant aimed at alleviating childhood poverty. However, as youth unemployment has grown there has been greater interest in whether cash transfers can be leveraged to foster better outcomes. This prompted an exploration of how CSG beneficiaries and their caregivers were using the grant, whether they are thinking about transitions once the grant ends, and what their experiences mean for reimagining the grant. From a transformative perspective, ideally, a CSG would not only mitigate childhood poverty, but also nurture and advance youth aspirations, ultimately performing functions that promote sustained and meaningful developmental gains. This study was intended to explore how this might be achieved, based on an understanding of existing experiences.
Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine whether and how caregivers and children receiving the CSG in Doornkop, Soweto, saved money and built assets for youth transition. The study set out to determine whether these CSG households save and build assets for youth transition or not, and how those that save and build assets do so...