Francie Lund

The Reach and Impact of Child Support Grants: Evidence from KwaZulu-Natal

This paper examines the reach and impact of the South African Child Support Grant, using longitudinal data collected through the Africa Centre for Health and Population Studies. The grant is being taken up for a third of all age-eligible resident children, and appears to be reaching those children living in the poorer households of the demographic surveillance area (DSA). Children who received the grant are significantly more likely to be enrolled in school in the years following grant receipt than are equally poor children of the same age. However, older brothers and sisters of grant recipients, when they were observed at younger ages, were less likely than other children to be enrolled in school – perhaps reflecting the greater poverty in grant-receiving households. Thus the grant appears to help overcome the impact of poverty on school enrolment.

Is there a rationale for conditional cash transfers for children in South Africa

The South African state awards unconditional means-tested cash transfers to the caregivers of some eight million poor children. Amidst increasing demands on the state for social assistance, and given the positive performance of conditional cash transfer programmes in Latin America, a salient policy question is: should the Child Support Grant (CSG) be made conditional on education or health related behaviour to enhance its effectiveness? The term ‘conditionality’ is used inconsistently in South Africa, and the article suggests separating out five categories or requirements for access to and continued receipt of social grants. We summarise the generally positive performance of conditional cash transfers in diverse Latin American programmes, showing in particular their marked effects on school attendance. The history, current reach and early impact of the CSG are then described. Using the five categories of administrative action, we describe how in the implementation of the unconditional CSG, a range of measures has been imposed which impose costs on applicants, and act to exclude poorer children and caregivers. Further, access to health and education appears to be a supply-side problem, rather than a problem of individual motivation. To be in line with South Africa’s Constitution, better administration and provision is likely to be a more rational, just and efficient intervention than the imposition of conditionalities.

Social security and the changing labour market: Access for non‐standard and informal workers in South Africa

Abstract Increasing numbers of South Africans work in the informal economy and in non‐standard (part time and temporary) formal employment, and there is widespread contractualisation of formerly secure formal jobs. Many engaged in economic activities lose or never acquire access to social benefits that have traditionally been associated with the formal workplace. The situation of people in different types of employment is compared with respect to access to selected contingencies ‐ loss of income, disability arising through work, ill health, maternity, childcare and old age. Informal workers as well as non‐standard workers are excluded from contributory schemes that depend on a defined employer‐employee relationship. But South Africans do have access, as citizens, to a relatively extensive system of state assistance, including pensions for elderly people and people with permanent disabilities, and some assistance for child support. An approach to social security is needed which sees economically active people as placed at different points of a continuum from formal to informal employment, which includes a gendered and sectoral analysis of access to social security, and which keeps open a role for multiple stakeholders ‐ especially employers and owners of capital ‐ in extending social security coverage to informal and non‐standard workers.

Towards an Inclusive Occupational Health and Safety For Informal Workers

Large numbers of workers worldwide work informally. Yet the discipline and practice of occupational health and safety covers largely only formal workers, in formal work places. A comprehensive approach would have to take into account specific hazards faced by those in different occupations, working in “atypical” work places. Local authorities exert significant influence in the provision of infrastructure that impacts on health and safety, such as water and sanitation. Examples from Brazil and Ghana show that positive interventions are possible so long as informal workers are recognized as contributing to the economy. A more inclusive occupational health and safety is most likely to happen in contexts where informal workers have an organized voice and where there are responsive health and safety personnel who understand that the world of work has changed. Some policy interventions that impact on healthy and safe work will need to involve multiple stakeholders and institutions.

Status report from South Africa

ConclusionIn their lifetime, older blacks have experienced discrimination and disadvantages that have discouraged healthy life-styles and economic and subjective well-being. The family support system and a non-contributory pension system have helped overcome some of the negative effects. South Africa’s Reconstruction and Development Program, which tends to favor youth over the elderly, poses a threat to existing service provision but also promises greater empowerment of the elderly and the benefits of a community-driven comprehensive family care system.

Remaking community at Riemvasmaak

Restitution processes must consider who is returning to the land and understand the structure of households if they are to be successful, FRANCIE LUND writes

Working People and Access to Social Protection

The informal economy is growing worldwide in the proportion of the workforce who work in it, in the number of informal enterprises, and in the economic contribution of the informal sector to the GDP of many countries (ILO 2002). There is an increase in the numbers of self-employed people (own-account operators, and those who employ others); growing numbers of people work on a contractualized or outsourced basis; fewer people work with secure and lasting contracts; and many formal workers are losing work-related social benefits such as access to health insurance and pension provision. This applies to countries worldwide, though ‘non-standard employment’ is the term usually used to refer to countries in the North and ‘informal employment’ to those in the South.

Extending Health and Safety to Informal Workers A Photo Essay

There is great diversity in the informal economy—of occupation, place of work, status in employment, extent of regulation, and access to health services, among other things. Many articles in this special edition have described the extent of risks and hazards in different sectors of the informal economy. The lens we use in this photo essay is, first, positive interventions in different countries that have attempted to improve the safety, security, and health of informal workers and their families. They include improved access of poor women head porters to a national health insurance scheme, reform of local market regulations to control the weights carried by men porters, the installation of first-aid stands in built markets, skill upgrading for better incomes, the development of improved work equipment, reform of national legislation in the interests of workers, the importance of the local level of government, and its role in the provision of infrastructure such as water, lighting, garbage removal, the use of smart technology for more accurate estimation of work done, and the provision of child care—an issue that is directly related to the ability of poorer women informal workers’ ability to earn better and more reliable incomes. Second, we see the different kinds of organizations involved in the interventions: associations, collectives, trade unions, a housing trust, supportive nongovernment organizations, municipalities, for example. These on-the-ground examples can be used to give support to the growing national, regional, and global alliances of informal workers around issues of health and safety. The initiatives show not only that a more inclusive work-related health and safety domain for informal workers needs to be developed—but also that it can be done. For additional resources and photos visit www.wiego.org/newsolutions. NEW SOLUTIONS: A Journal of Environmental and Occupational Health Policy 2016, Vol. 26(2) 326–336 ! The Author(s) 2016 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1048291116652826 new.sagepub.com

The Changed World of Work

The majority of workers in the global south, and increasing numbers in the north, work in the informal economy. Most are de facto or de jure excluded from services and regulation of occupational health and safety. Significant recent improvements in classification of status of informal employment have enabled improved labor force data; it has not been matched by progress with data collection on work-related risks, hazards, and health outcomes for informal workers. This special edition describes some of the risks and hazards, but focuses on strategies and interventions—such as taking occupational health and safety services to markets where informal workers operate, legal reforms, and designing appropriate equipment. The diversity of occupations and work places (many in public space) mean that new stakeholders such as local municipalities, informal workers associations and unions, as well as health professionals, need to be considered when striving for a more inclusive occupational health and safety.

Welfare, Development and Growth: Lessons from South Africa

This volume has presented evidence from OECD countries that there can be a coexistence of social spending, economic growth and stability. A recurring theme is: If this combination is appropriate for the north, why should it be inappropriate for the south? And is there evidence from the south that it is indeed possible and appropriate? This chapter focuses on South Africa, which contains both the affluence of the north, and the unacceptable scale of poverty in sub-Saharan Africa.