921 research outputs found
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An analysis of out of school youth who have not completed matric: what can available data tell us?
No full textThis short report, commissioned by the IPSS Youth Focus Project funded by the Ford Foundation, investigates the extent to which available public data can inform trajectories of post-school youth and the critical gaps that the public data does not address.This paper was commissioned by the IPSS Youth Focus Project funded by the Ford Foundation
Handwashing behaviour and habit formation in the household: evidence of spillovers from a pilot randomised evaluation in South Africa
No full textHandwashing with soap at critical times is a simple and effective way to prevent the spread of communicable diseases, such as diarrhoea and acute respiratory infection, which are major causes of morbidity and mortality in the developing world. However, rates of handwashing remain low, and interventions which attempt to improve handwashing behaviours have largely been unsuccessful in practice. In 2014, we conducted a pilot randomised evaluation in poor urban community in Cape Town to measure the impacts of HOPE SOAP© – a translucent bar of soap with a toy inside of it, designed to make handwashing fun for children. In the pilot, 229 households were randomly assigned to receive four deliveries of HOPE SOAP© over a period of eight weeks. Analysis found that that HOPE SOAP© had positive impacts on children’s handwashing behaviours and health outcomes. In this study, we expand upon the previous analysis, and examine the spillover effects – or indirect effects – that the intervention had on other members of children’s households. Specifically, we employ OLS regression analysis to investigate the impacts of HOPE SOAP© on the handwashing behaviours of children’s primary caregivers (based observation, where a snack was provided to caregivers and data were recorded on handwashing prior to preparing the snack), and on the health outcomes of all non-treated household members. Evidence shows that a child’s assignment to HOPE SOAP© had a positive impact on the handwashing behaviour of their caregiver: the intervention increased the probability that a caregiver washed their hands before preparing a snack (at a second instance of observation) by 13 percentage points on average (p-value 0.17). Investigation of the causal mechanisms for this effect suggests that HOPE SOAP© affected caregiver behaviour both by disrupting existing poor-hygiene habits, and strengthening handwashing norms within households. Specifically, the intervention effect was larger for caregivers whose households had a lower cleanliness score at baseline (: 0.19, p-value 0.12); suggesting that the intervention may have been effective at disrupting bad hygiene habits. Despite its positive effects on behaviour, HOPE SOAP© had no discernible short-term impacts on the health of individual household members. Nonetheless, the positive impact of HOPE SOAP© on caregiver handwashing behaviour suggests that the intervention’s effects extend beyond improvements in outcomes for children; and indicate that HOPE SOAP© may be successful in inducing habitual handwashing behaviours which can persist in the long-run. Thus, a future large-scale randomised controlled trial is warranted to test this promising intervention.We gratefully acknowledge funding provided by the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) Incubation Fund
Causes and consequences of teen childbearing: Evidence from a reproductive health intervention in South Africa
No full textWe use a natural experiment to estimate the causal impact of a public health intervention aimed at reducing teenage childbearing. The geographic and timing variation in the rollout of the South African National Adolescent Friendly Clinic Initiative (NAFCI) in the early 2000s provides a plausibly exogenous increase in reproductive health knowledge and clinical access for teens. We investigate the causal pathway from the intervention’s initial impact on early-teen childbearing to subsequent consequences for later-life outcomes of prime policy interest — education, employment and child health. Our empirical strategy uses GPS data from the National Income Dynamics Study to geolink women’s location of residence during adolescence to the location and timing of the rollout. Our results show that living near a NAFCI clinic during adolescence delayed childbearing, substantially lowering the likelihood of early teen childbearing. We estimate that adolescents who had access to NAFCI completed more years of schooling and, consistent with increased human capital investments, earn substantially higher wages as young adults. Finally, children born to women who had access to youth-friendly services as teens show substantial health advantages, indicating a strong intergenerational benefit of delaying early teen childbearing in a developing country context
Nurture surpasses nature: The intergenerational transmission of depression from African mothers to their adolescent children
No full textMental health in South Africa has been neglected as a public health and policy issue, particularly
among adolescents. This is unfortunate, as nineteen percent of African adolescents in South Africa
suffered from depression in 2014, and these rates were even higher for adolescents with mothers
with poor mental health. Previous work has estimated the impact of parental depression on child
depression in South Africa, and found it to be substantial, particularly for adolescent children. A
teenager whose mother suffers from depression will have a risk of depression which is thirty
percentage points higher than teens whose mothers do not suffer from depression. In order to decide
on the best method of treatment to prevent transmission from occurring, it is necessary to disentangle
the effect into its environmental and genetic components. There is no similar literature on this
relationship in the South African context. This paper investigates the nature of depression
transmission to African adolescents in South Africa, and finds that it is primarily environmental factors
which account for the transmission of depression to children. Using a variety of techniques, we find
that once the “nurture” effect has been accounted for, the “nature” effect is negligible. This implies
that mitigating negative factors in a household, and in communities, as opposed to directly treating
adolescent mental health using conventional approaches, may be the best approach, particularly in a
country struggling with a lack of mental health professionals
Social cohesion and inequality in South Africa
No full textWe examine recent trends in social cohesion and inequality, and the relationship between the two in South Africa using data from the South African Reconciliation Barometer Surveys. Given that the country’s history of long-term racial and socioeconomic segregation, we use the extent of inter-racial interactions as our main approximation of social cohesion. We show that although there is some improvement in the extent of inter-racial interactions over time, even today less than a third of South Africans often or always talk or socialize with someone from a different racial group. We use a multidimensional Living Standards Measure to assess the level of well-being and the level of inequality. Our inequality analysis of this measure indicates that since 2008 both vertical and horizontal (between races) inequality declined significantly. These trends can be attributed to progress made in the provision of basic services (i.e. water, electricity) and ownership of household assets in South Africa. In contrast, when we focus on subjective or perceived inequality, it is clear that large proportions of South Africans (about 70 percent) perceive that the extent of inequality (the gap between the poor and the rich) has not changed much or has even worsened over time.
The key finding of our quantitative work is a significant relationship between individuals’ perception of inequality and their level of inter-racial interactions. Individuals who perceived that the gap between the rich and the poor is getting worse are less likely to participate in inter-racial socializations, while those who perceived that the gap is getting better are more likely to participate in inter-racial socializations. This finding remains strong and significant even after controlling for the influence of LSM, race, education, trust and other factors. Indeed, a number of these factors are also correlated with higher inter-racial interactions. Individuals who have higher education levels, a higher LSM and a better relative economic position are more likely to be involved in inter-racial socialization. In both the descriptive and multivariate analysis Africans and Whites are shown to have lower levels of inter-racial interactions than Coloureds at all LSM levels.
The provincial-level multivariate analysis is able to examine the relationship between a full social cohesion index and inequality in LSMs. These results suggest that vertical inequality in living standards is correlated with the level of social cohesion. Higher inequality may adversely affect social cohesion as it reduces inclusivenessThis paper is an AFD-UCT-IJR Partnership, written as part of the “Social Cohesion, Inequality and
Inclusive Development” partnership agreement between the French Development Agency, South
African Office and the University of Cape Town. It is funded by the French Development Agency
(AFD). We acknowledge very useful comments from AFD seminars in Pretoria and in Paris as well
as from participants in the 4th DIAL Conference on Development Economics
The top tail of South Africa’s earnings distribution 1993-2014: Evidence from the Pareto distribution
No full textWe estimate the parameters of a Pareto distribution for South African earnings as measured through the October Household Surveys, Labour Force Surveys and Quarterly Labour Force Surveys, as assembled in the Post-Apartheid Labour Market Series (PALMS). We develop an outlier detection algorithm consistent with this distribution and then adjust the Gini coefficient for inequality in the top tail, using the robust estimation technique of Cowell and Flachaire. That procedure suggests that wage inequality is a bit higher than conventionally estimated. We also show that the top tail of the South African earnings distribution is ‘thick tailed’ and explore what that means. Our analyses show big shifts in the distribution in some of the surveys in ways that suggest measurement changes rather than changes in the underlying distribution.Funding from REDI3x3 for this project is gratefully acknowledged as are helpful comments from a REDI3x3 anonymous reviewer. Helpful feedback was also provided by participants at the Economic Society of South Africa biennial conference in Grahamstown, August 2017. Much earlier versions of this paper were presented at seminars at the University of Michigan and at a Data Quality workshop hosted by DataFirst in Cape Town.
This research report was first published in December 2017 as Working Paper 46 of the Research Project on Employment, Income Distribution and Inclusive Growth (REDI3x3), funded by the South African National Treasury and based at SALDRU, University of Cape Town: www.redi3x3.or
The demand for cigarettes: new evidence from South Africa
No full textThis paper estimates the price elasticity of demand for cigarettes in South Africa, a country that has currently experienced a transition in the cigarette market, from a near monopoly to a more competitive
market structure. Based on longitudinal data drawn from the South Africa National Income and Dynamic Study (NIDS: 2008 - 2014), we compare the results of the conditional elasticity (random and
fixed effect panel estimates) and total elasticity of demand (two-part model). Like previous evidence into cigarette prices, we obtain negative price elasticity of demand for cigarettes, with the total price elasticity significantly larger than the conditional elasticity. For the total elasticity, a 10% increase in price reduces cigarette consumption by 4.3% for the economy brands and 6.9% for the mid-price brands. However, we nd that over the same period, estimates from the fixed effect model are statistically insignifi cant. This is probably due to the limited within variation in both in cigarette consumption and cigarette prices. Thus, with between variation models, increased tobacco taxes can, in the presence of the changing market structure, remain a desirable policy tool for reducing cigarette consumption.The authors gratefully acknowledge funding support from the International Development Research
Centre (IDRC), the Medical Research Councils (MRC) of South Africa (Project number: 108442-
002), from Cancer Research UK (CRUK) and the Carnegie Foundation New York. We would also
like to thank Corne Van Walbeek and Hana Ross for their constructive criticisms. We are also
grateful for the valuable comments and suggestions received from the anonymous reviewer of the
Economic Research Southern Africa (ERSA) working paper series.
All views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the
views of, and should not be attributed to the funders
The State of Youth Well-being in South Africa
No full textMore than two decades after South Africa’s transition to
democracy, more than half of all young people between the
ages of 15 to 24 in the country continue to live in income
poverty. While progress has been made in several areas
of youth well-being, outcomes in crucial domains such as
educational attainment, employment, and health remain low.
The current National Youth Policy1 (NYP) recognises this
reality and places these three domains (economic inclusion
and participation; education, skills, and training; health and
well-being)2 central in its approach. However, by mid-2018,
the policy remains without an implementation plan, and the
country continues to lack a coherent understanding of the
range of deprivations in young people’s lives and the complex
ways in which these interact.
This policy brief focuses specifically on 15 to 24-year-olds
as this is a crucial development stage during which young
people transition from adolescence into young adulthood. It
is also the international definition of youth as applied by the
World Health Organisation.3 We present a set of indicators
based on national, provincial and municipal data from the
2011 Census and – where available – the 2016 Community
Survey data. Indicators such as these could help inform the
implementation of the NYP, both within line departments
and in an across-government approach. The sub-national
analyses allow for the identification of areas of greatest need
within provinces and municipalities. In addition, the focus
on income poverty as well as multidimensional deprivation
highlights the many and complex challenges facing South
Africa’s youth.
The data and maps used in this brief draw on the interactive
Youth Explorer. This online tool is developed by the University
of Cape Town’s Poverty and Inequality Initiative (PII), based at
the Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit,
through an ongoing partnership with Statistics South Africa,
OpenUp, the Economies of Regions Learning Network, the
DG Murray Trust and the Centre of Excellence in Human
Development, University of the Witwatersrand.This brief has been made
possible with support from the
Poverty & Inequality Initiative
at the University of Cape
Town
Is employment a panacea for poverty in South Africa? A mixed-methods investigation
No full textUnemployment is a key determinant of poverty in South Africa and job losses are closely associated with descents into poverty. Disparities in opportunities that characterise individual fortunes in the labour market, in turn, reflect deep-rooted structural inequalities in South Africa. I focus on a black, urban demographic and investigate the conditions under which transitions out of employment lead to descents into poverty and/or declines in self-reported wellbeing. Of particular relevance are those cases in which a transition out of employment leads to a descent into money-metric poverty without resulting in a fall in self-reported wellbeing. These apparent inconsistencies – especially prevalent in cases where workers choose to leave work – may help illuminate how disadvantaged workers face non-negligible disincentives to certain forms of low-skill employment, which, under certain circumstances, may outweigh the disincentives to unemployment. Analysing both NIDS panel data and qualitative data collected by the author in Cape Town, I show how a purely quantitative analysis cannot provide an adequate account of the relationship between job loss and changes in self-reported wellbeing. In contrast, a qualitative analysis can illuminate the causal mechanisms which explain why, under certain circumstances, transitioning out of employment will be the welfare optimising choice for workers. To aid this explanation, I develop a model which analyses the welfare effect of job losses as being jointly determined by the strength of outside options and the disincentives to work. Younger workers with no dependants and with alternative sources of support can be said to have stronger outside options, and are especially likely to turn down or quit “bad” jobs. Older workers, with dependants and without alternative sources of support, are more likely to accept and persist in “bad” jobs – leading me to characterise wage work in these instances as a “survivalist” livelihood choice. This study shows that understanding the complexity and multidimensionality of the incentives that workers face and which inform labour market choices will be indispensable in effectively designing policies which aim to reduce inequalities in the labour market – in South Africa and beyond.I am grateful to Pramila Krishnan, Hannah Dawson, Vimal Ranchhod, Stefan Dercon, Murray
Leibbrandt, Joshua Budlender, Ravi Kanbur, David Neves, Debbie Budlender, participants at
talks and conferences including the 2017 HDCA Conference in Cape Town, the 2018 CSAE
Conference in Oxford, and at SALDRU, ReSEP and Oxford African Studies Centre seminars, as
well as several anonymous reviewers at the Oxford Department for International Development
for helpful suggestions on earlier drafts. Nina Zizzamia provided excellent assistance with
proofreading. Arden Finn provided helpful Stata code for cleaning and deflating National Income
Dynamics Study data. I am especially grateful to Simone Schotte, who has been an inimitable
partner in both the design of this research project and in running field research in Khayelitsha,
and who also helped with the design of weights for the NIDS balanced panel. I am also indebted
to an exceptional team of fieldworkers, among whom Mzulungile Cabanga, Sibongile Mthini,
Andiswa Mtini and Amanda Moocha deserve special mention. Fieldwork was implemented
with the financial support of the Southern African Labour and Development Research Unit, the
German Institute for Global and Area Studies, St Anne’s College, Oxford, and the Department of
International Development at the University of Oxford. I am grateful for support through the Skye
Foundation and the Dulverton and Michael Wills Trusts. Responsibility for any errors remains my
own
Lifestyle and Income-related Inequality in Health in South Africa
No full textBackground: Many low- and middle-income countries are experiencing an epidemiological transition from
communicable to non-communicable diseases. This has negative consequences for their human capital
development, and imposes a growing economic burden on their societies. While the prevalence of such diseases
varies with socioeconomic status, the inequalities can be exacerbated by adopted lifestyles of individuals. Evidence
suggests that lifestyle factors may explain the income-related inequality in self-reported health. Self-reported health
is a subjective evaluation of people’s general health status rather than an objective measure of lifestyle-related illhealth.
Method: The objective of this paper is to expand the literature by examining the contribution of smoking and
alcohol consumption to health inequalities, incorporating more objective measures of health, that are directly
associated with these lifestyle practices. We used the National Income Dynamic Study panel data for South Africa.
The corrected concentration index is used to measure inequalities in health outcomes. We use a decomposition
technique to identify the contribution of smoking and alcohol use to inequalities in health.
Results: We find significant smoking-related and income-related inequalities in both self-reported and lifestylerelated
ill-health. The results suggest that smoking and alcohol use contribute positively to income-related
inequality in health. Smoking participation accounts for up to 7.35% of all measured inequality in health and 3.11%
of the inequality in self-reported health. The estimates are generally higher for all measured inequality in health (up
to 14.67%) when smoking duration is considered. Alcohol consumption accounts for 27.83% of all measured
inequality in health and 3.63% of the inequality in self-reported health.
Conclusion: This study provides evidence that inequalities in both self-reported and lifestyle-related ill-health are
highly prevalent within smokers and the poor. These inequalities need to be explicitly addressed in future
programme planning to reduce health inequalities in South Africa. We suggest that policies that can influence poor
individuals to reduce tobacco consumption and harmful alcohol use will improve their health and reduce health
inequalities.We are grateful to the editor and the anonymous referee of Economic Research Southern Africa (ERSA) working paper series who provided comments that have helped improve this paper. We also appreciate the comments and suggestions from the 4th Scientific African Health Economics and Policy Association Conference attendees. We are equally grateful to Lynn Woolfrey and Loretta Mujuru for providing us with their editorial services.
Funding
This study was supported by the Economics of Tobacco Control Project, hosted by the South African Labour and Development Research Unit (SALDRU) at the School of Economics, University of Cape Town