Abstract
Extended households have always provided a safety net for orphaned children. However, the high rate of HIV (AIDS) infection, unemployment and poverty has weakened their capacity to fulfil this vital role. Most of the extended households with orphan-care responsibilities are forced to subsist under poor socio-economic conditions and depend on government social grants for their material survival. Consequently, the majority of extended households live in poverty and therefore lack sufficient resources to care for these children.
In addition to receiving government social grants, some extended households are also receiving financial and non-financial assistance from local non-governmental organisations (NGOs). These local NGOs play an important role in strengthening the these households ― which, as mentioned, provide a refuge to orphaned children ― by providing basic needs such as food, clothes and medical care to orphans living in extended family units. However, despite this significant role of local NGOs, little has been done to quantify their economic impact. It is against this background that this mini-dissertation strives to bridge this gap by investigating the economic impact of NGOs in improving the well-being of vulnerable orphaned children living in these extended households of Soweto.
Methodologically, this mini-dissertation employs the Foster, Greer and Thorbecke (FGT) poverty indices (1984), in order to assess the impact of NGOs’ help in reducing the level and the depth of poverty in poor households living with orphaned children. We used the Kruskal-Wallis (1952) non-parametric test to test whether the help of NGOs was significant in reducing the level and the depth of poverty in these homes.
In the second approach, we use the logit econometric model to control for variables that may affect the probability of an orphaned child to be poor.
Before we analysed the results of the FGT poverty indices and the logit econometric model, we started by analysing the demographic profile of all households who participated in this study in order to have knowledge of the prevailing socio-economic conditions of these households. We further compared the income of each household in...
M.Com.