921 research outputs found
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The impact of AIDS on intergenerational support in South Africa: Evidence from the Cape Area Panel Study
No full textWe use panel data collected in metropolitan Cape Town to document the role played by aging parents in caring for the children of children who die. In addition, we quantify the probabilities that older adults and the older adults" children provide financial support to orphaned grandchildren. We find significant transfers of public and private funds to older adults in households with orphans. Perhaps for this reason, we see no difference in expenditure patterns between households with orphans and other older adult households. With respect to older adults" quality of life, we find no effect of reporting that a child died, or of co-residence with orphaned grandchildren, on the older adults" reports of depression, or on their self-assessed health
Evaluating the Impact of Health Programmes
No full textThis paper has two broad objectives. The first objective is broadly methodological and deals with some of the more pertinent estimation issues one should be aware of when studying the impact of health status on economic outcomes. We discuss some alternatives for constructing counterfactuals when designing health program evaluations such as randomization, matching and instrumental variables. Our second objective is to present a review of the existing evidence on the impact of health interventions on individual welfare
Estimating the responsiveness of college applications to the likelihood of acceptance and financial assistance: Evidence from Texas.
No full textThis paper investigates the impact of Texas's Top Ten Percent Rule - which grants automatic entry to any public college in Texas for Texas high school graduates who graduate in the top decile - and subsequent targeted recruitment programs initiated by Texas's flagship universities. Using data on SAT test takers in Texas from 1996-2004, we find that the Top Ten Percent rule affects the set of colleges that students consider, and the targeted recruitment programs are able to attract the attention of students from poor high schools that were not traditional sources of students for the flagships in Texas
Migration from the Northern Cape
No full textIn South Africa, the causes of migration and its impact on society first became entrenched, institutionalised and studied in the latter decades of the 19th Century as mining activity catapulted the country onto the world economic stage. As South Africa evolved into a more modern, capitalist society and agriculture became a less attractive employment option due to a period of crisis at the end of the 1800s, various population groups started migrating towards urban centres. Rural Afrikaners who had been displaced from their land and Black labour migrants constituted the bulk of migrants to urban centres. These population sub-groups were quite different in the motivations and outcomes of their migration, with many of the rural Afrikaners being absorbed into state employment while Black movers were mostly labour migrants
Lazy Rotten Sons? Relatedness, gender and the intra-household allocation of work and leisure in South Africa
No full textWe investigate the balance between work (including home production), leisure and personal care (chiefly sleep) within South African households. We use the South African time use survey which enables us to obtain a better measure of the division of total labour (paid and unpaid) within South African households than previous studies have been able to. Furthermore we construct a measure of "genetic" relatedness between the respondent and other members of the household. We find that women that are more closely related to other household members do more work and enjoy less leisure than more peripheral individuals. Single men, by contrast, seem to do less work and enjoy more leisure if they are more closely related to other household members. Our findings are not compatible with the unitary model of the household. They suggest that men extract extra leisure because of the anticipated altruism shown by women
Re-weighting the OHS and LFS national household survey data to create a consistent series over time: A cross entropy estimation approach
No full textIn the absence of South African longitudinal data for the ten years post apartheid, national cross-sectional household survey data is frequently used to analyse change over time. When these data are stacked side-by-side however, they reveal inconsistencies both in trends across time and between the household and person level data. These inconsistencies can introduce biases into research which analyse change. This study calculates a new set of person and household weights for the October Household Surveys between 1995 and 1999 and the Labour Force Surveys between 2000 and 2004. A cross entropy estimation approach is used. This approach is favoured because the calculated weights are similar to the initial sample weights (and hence retain the survey design benefits) while simultaneously being consistent with aggregate auxiliary data. A consistent series of aggregates from the Actuarial Society of South Africa (ASSA) model and the 1996 and 2001 South African Census data are used as benchmarks. The new weights result in consistent demographic and geographic trends over time and greater consistency between person and household level data
Assessing the Incidence of Public Works Programmes: Using Propensity Score Matching Techniques to Assess the Poverty Targeting of Employment in Two Public Works Programmes in South Africa
No full textThis paper explores the socio-economic identity of Public Works Programme (PWP) participants in two programmes in South Africa, in order to establish the incidence of PWP participation, a question which is central to assessing the social protection impact of PWPs, but which is frequently omitted from programme analysis, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. The paper focuses on an analysis of the demographic and socio-economic characteristics of PWP participants. As in many PWPs, no baseline data on participants in these programme were collected. Therefore, it is not possible to ascertain a priori who the beneficiaries of the programmes are, a situation which fundamentally challenges any attempt to or to assess incidence or the social protection impact of such an intervention. The research interrogates the assumption that the "less eligibility criteria" central to the design of PWPs (the work requirement and low wages) will lead to participation of the poorest, thereby reducing the likelihood of inclusion errors, attempting first to ascertain who the participants in the programmes are. The question is explored using survey data gathered in 2003 on two case study PWPs implemented simultaneously in South Africa, which adopt different design and targeting approaches. Programme incidence is then considered in relationship to targeting and programme objectives, and the conclusion drawn that in order for PWPs to reach the poorest in a given community, reliance on self targeting through the work requirement and a low wage is not adequate, and explicit targeting measures are needed during participant selection
UPE and social inequality in Uganda: A step backward or a step in the right direction?
No full textIt is widely agreed that studying the relationship between school quality and academic achievement will benefit public investment in education. This is particularly true in Africa where, the 1990 World Conference on Education for All led to renewed commitments to quality basic education. At this time, Uganda implemented a set of public reforms that were designed to increase educational opportunities in poor communities. This paper uses data from the second wave of a cross-national survey of schools in Southern and Eastern Africa to assess some dimensions of these Ugandan reforms. Hierarchical linear models are estimated to investigate which schools most effectively ensure a meaningful educational experience for children who face economic and social hardships. Contrary to earlier studies in developing countries, the positive relationship between socioeconomic status and student performance is striking and significant. In line with the school effectiveness theory, resource availability proves to be consistently related to educational quality and its equitable distribution in Uganda
Internal Migration and Poverty in KwaZulu-Natal: Findings from Censuses, Labour Force Surveys and Panel Data
No full textIn a globalising world, the pace of human mobility has increased alongside flows of capital and goods. Regional integration and trade liberalisation have accompanied these trends and have, arguably, received more attention from both academic researchers and policymakers. Human movement, however, cannot be de-linked from other social and economic events and it is becoming critical to undertake research that identifies the links between human migration and these events
Health: Analysis of the NIDS Wave 1 Dataset
No full textHealth status and socioeconomic status are important determinants of individuals’ wellbeing. Information on income alone, or on health alone, provides a less complete picture. Better health can lead to higher income, and higher income can lead to better health, so that we cannot fully understand the dynamics of either process without understanding both. Much of the research on international health and income has focused on the cross-country relationships between population health and national income. Starting from Preston (1975, 1980), these relationships have been used to investigate the causes of mortality decline, particularly the relative roles of income and of medical knowledge. And data on adult height have been used to investigate the causes of the historical decline in mortality, see in particular Fogel (1997, 2004), Floud, Wachter, and Gregory (1990), and Steckel (1995)