The Care Dependency Grant for children with disabilities in South Africa: Perspectives from implementation officials

ABSTRACT

For people with disabilities, appropriate social protection interventions can contribute to breaking the cyclical relationship between poverty and disability and may improve social inclusion. In South Africa, a national social assistance programme provides ‘social grants’ to individuals on the basis of poverty, age, or disability. These grants have been extensively studied but there has been little investigation into the Care Dependency Grant, designed to support the care of children with disabilities. These children consistently have far poorer outcomes on key metrics for wellbeing, health, and education than their non-disabled peers. More attention ought to be focused on uplifting this profoundly marginalised population. We present initial findings from interviews with officials at the South African Social Security Agency, the country’s grants implementation agency. These narratives add weight to the growing local and international consensus that complementary interventions and effective intersectoral collaboration may greatly enhance the impact of cash transfers.

KEYWORDS:

• Social protection
• disability
• children
• South Africa

Acknowledgements

The authors thank all of the research participants who committed their time and energy to in-depth interviews, particularly considering the strenuous time during which the data were collected. Grateful thanks also to Dr Judith Cornell for her review of and comments on the final draft.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available on reasonable request from the corresponding author (ZT). The data are not publicly available due to the ethical constraints under which they were collected. Transcripts contain identifying information that could compromise the anonymity and privacy of research participants.

Notes

1 Disability terminology is contested. Some prefer ‘person-first’ terminology. Others prefer alternate terminology (e.g. ‘disabled person’), to emphasise that the oppressiveness of disability results more from constraints in social, political, and geographical environments than from an individual’s impairment. These terms are used interchangeably here.

2 The preoccupation with fraud in the South African political context and grants system will be the central focus of a forthcoming article.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded in whole by Wellcome Trust. A CC-BY-N or equivalent licence is applied to the AAM/VoR arising from this submission, in accordance with the grant’s open access conditions.